First a big bearded Happy Birthday to my main Montana livin’ broseph, Michael. Look forward to seeing you soon!
And in other news
I got an internship this Summer!
With…
*drumroll*
…
Cisco!
Wooo woooo (the sound the whistles make)! I will be working in San Jose, California this Summer as an intern for Cisco. I am really-super-duper-extremely-tremendously happy about this. Was really freaking out about finding a job this Summer so this is not only a weight off my shoulders but a pleasant surprise to find that my first choice company picked me after only a 30 minute, fairly relaxed interview. Was nervous until they e-mailed me an offer expecting to have to go through some nerve wracking, ego shattering interviews.
San Jose: The 10th largest city in the US. Nearly 1 million people. Known as the Capital of Silicon Valley. Safest city in the US with over 500,000 people in it. An hour South of San Francisco.
Cisco: 63,000 employees. Headquartered in San Jose, designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under a couple different brands, the most well known of which are Cisco and Linksys. During the dot-com boom in 2000 was the most valuable company in the world. International work opportunities (i.e. me living in another country *cha-ching*). Employees speak highly of the company and the work experience.
Not sure exactly what kind of work I’ll be doing yet. Should have some input into the kind of project I want to be involved in but most things involved with networking are really interesting and, at this point, fairly mysterious to me.
Continue to read about and see pictures from my first bike races:
The cycling races here at NCSU were really a great time. Although I only competed in the lowest level category, I was still surprised at the strength of a lot of the riders. Seeing the A, B, and non-collegiate pro riders compete was a fairly awe inspiring, motivational sight to behold. I was also surprised to discover how much of these races are dependent on skill and luck, not simply endurance.
The races on Saturday were on an 18 mile loop, of which us D class riders only go around once. The A class riders, on the other hand, go around it 4 times for a total of 72 grueling miles. It was really exciting to be in a pack of 30ish riders, everybody within a couple feet of each other trying hard to stay close to the guy in front of you and out of the wind. People are constantly trying to get a place in the pack close to the front. If you end up in the back of the pack and the front riders break off quickly and put distance in between you it’s really tough to catch back up with the wind in your face.
I was doing pretty successful at being in good position in the pack and ended up being in a front split of about 10 people who powered away from the slower back group. At this point the dynamic changed fairly significantly which I was not at all ready for. It basically turned into a long line of riders, meaning everybody is cruising along and only the one guy in front of the pack is killing himself doing work trying to keep up to speed. Nobody wanted to be that guy. Nobody was trying to intentionally be in the front at this point. The person in the front would generally stay up there for a bit and then drop back towards the back of the line, leaving the number 2 man in front. I did my share of work in the front a couple times (not a good idea) and then told myself I would conserve my energy and try to get out of front quickly when it came to be my turn again. Well, that turn came up an uphill. I slowed down to attempt to get towards the back of the group and *wooooosh* everybody shot passed me as I couldn’t get back to speed on the hill to stick to the back of the group.
Once you are dropped you are pretty much done for. I had been dropped from the front group once before and had to work my ass off to cut the 50 feet gap between me and the last rider. Couldn’t do it again. Thankfully we had put so much distance between the group behind us that I pedaled the last 5 miles by myself to the finish without ever seeing them. Ended up in 8th place. Was pleaseddd.
The criterion race the next day is 20 minutes going around and around a quarter mile loop. Less people this time but a bit more dangerous than the previous day’s road race, inexperienced riders racing around turns close to each other can certainly get sketchy at times. Not much you can do when you are surrounded on all 4 sides by riders other than hope nobody makes a mistake. Thankfully nobody made any grievous errors and, although I didn’t place well, I didn’t get dropped, had a great time, and learned some more lessons.
Here are some pictures,the first few are pictures from winter break I never got around to posting. The next are just some general pictures I took during Saturday’s road race. The last are pictures Paul was nice enough to take of the criterion road race I was in on Sunday.
Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far this is the section of this post where I tell you that I’ll be going to Ecuador at approximately 9:30 tomorrow morning. It’s with the Alternative Spring Break program here at NCSU together with Habitat. I’ll be back on Saturday, March 8th. Can’t wait!
The week in training:
16 – Biking –18 miles – 21 mph – NCSU Road Race.
17 – Biking – 20 minutes – NCSU Criterion Race
18 – Swimming – Awesomeee day swimming today. Warmed up with 500 yards of 50s and 100s then did a 5:40s 300. Felt really good about the 300. 50 seconds faster than my time less than 3 weeks ago. Really pushed myself with more 50 yard sprints, the fastest of which was 37 seconds, another record of mine shattered. 100 yard time was 1:37, which is also the fastest I’ve swam a 100. Exhausted but happy. 300 times (50 yard splits): 57, 1:01, 1:00, 57, 54, 50.
19 – Running – 10 miles. 88 minutes. Ran around campus for a while with Will. Realized I need to do 2 things: 1) Add an extra short run on the weekends before my long bike ride so my body isn’t so shocked to be running again after 5 days off. And 2) Carry water on my runs.
20 – Swimming – With the Tri club. Worked on stroke, not yardage.
20 – Biking – 75 minutes – Trainer. Took it easier.
21 – Biking – 55 minutes – Trainer. Pushed hard.
22 – Swimming – 300 yard warmup, 300 yard swim (53.42, 56.67, 57.14, 57.60, 57.68, 53.45 = 5:36s total). 600 yard ODS drills, 500 yard 100×5 set (1:55, 1:58, 1:54, 1:51, 1:50), 600 yard ODS drills.
22 – Running – 4 miles – Ran to Bruce’s house. Not the best decision. Assumed there would be sidewalks the whole way but they came to an abrupt end about halfway through the run.
23 – Running – 5.5 miles – Merideth. 8:08s min/mile pace there. 8:31s min/mile pace back. Felt great… until the day after. Achilles’ tendon starting hurting a little.
25 – Swimming – 600 yard ODS, 6×100 (30s rest) = 600 (1:47, 1:57, 1:54, 1:59, 1:53, 1:52), 600 ODS, 6×50 (46-50s each). Things to work on: Feet together, pull to the side, extend power all the way through the stroke, don’t pull on the left side before you’ve rotated back.
25 – Biking – 80 minutes – Trainer. Took it easy and studied Japanese for the first 50 minutes then intervals.
26 – Running – 3 miles – Terrible run. Thought I would crank out 8+ miles but could barely get 3. Discouraging. My right Achilles’ tendon region hurts and has been hurting a bit after my run Saturday morning. Bad idea to run that fast for that long. I will lay off running for a while. This will be easy as I’m going to Ecuador in a few days.
27 – Swimming – Bad. Goggles couldn’t keep water out of my eyeballs. Couldn’t swim, need to buy new ones.
27 – Biking – 120 minutes – Trainer. Not so pleased with my past run and swim, decided to do a long bike as long as my Achilles’ tendon felt okay. It felt fine, I would even say better afterwards. Took it easy and studied for my computer science test the first 75 minutes, kicked it up a bit with intervals for 35, cool down 10.
Great article.