Weekend Recap - Chattanooga Aquarium

My tenure in Fort Payne is almost up. The past six months have really flown by and with our move to Orlando just over a month away, this weekend was Michelle's last trip down here. We had been wanting to see the Chattanooga Aquarium since I moved down to northern Alabama but the opportunity was yet to present itself. Since this weekend was somewhat of a special occasion, Michelle's birthday, it seemed perfect for a fun-filled day in Chattanooga.

The weekend began with a quick run Friday afternoon...let me rephrase that...The weekend began with a four mile run but not "quick" by any means. I got home from work a bit early and wanted to take advantage of the remaining daylight. After some quick convincing on my part Michelle and I were out the door for a chilly evening run. Michelle wasn't super keen on the idea and since it was her birthday she was allowed to be, but I think it was nice to get out and be active before an evening of cooking.

Still having fun at this point.

When the sun is low we look tall.

I took my iPhone with me on the run, something I normally don't do, but I downloaded the Nike+GPS app this week and wanted to give it a try. More on that hopefully later.

Pretty close on the distance, but I'm beginning to notice the Nike+GPS is usually short.

Low sun on the way home.

Eventually it got pretty dark and we turned around and headed home to begin preparing our delicious dinner. Per request for Michelle's birthday we made artichoke and sun-dried tomato stuffed chicken; it was fantastic.

Sun-dried tomato and artichoke stuffed chicken.

Saturday was scheduled to begin with a workout at the local HS track; it didn't. Neither Michelle nor I were upset missing the workout and headed off towards Chattanooga, a quick 50 minute drive north. Upon arriving in Chattanooga we headed to our favorite coffee shop/cafe Rembrants in the Bluff District.

Cool stairs near the Bluff Art District.

Hunter Museum and Bluff view.

After another great meal and some quick shopping we made our way to the aquarium. Both of us had high expectations going into the aquarium but I don't think either of us were prepared for how AWESOME it was going to be. We purchased our tickets at the student discount rate and headed into building 1...yes building 1 because the aquarium is so huge it has two parts!


The aquarium takes you through along the Tennessee River which was really neat and then had a bunch of non-related exhibits scattered throughout. The best part was the layout of the aquarium that guided you through the museum which made sure you didn't miss anything, and kept everyone flowing so no exhibit was too crowded.

First we hit the seahorses and these little guys were awesome and there were so many different types; some of which fins move at more then 30/per second. Seahorse video below:

I thought this particular one was funny, originally I thought it was pregnant but turns out it's just fat...I'm not being mean; it's actually called Potbelly Seahorse...and the males can be carriers!


Then there was this guy, who kinda reminded me of those scary guys from The Pirates of Caribbean and his name wasn't super original either...Leafy Sea Dragon.

Leafy Sea Dragon pretty cool camouflage.

At the end of the sea horse exhibit I stumbled upon this unknown sea species, poor thing looks so sad to be in the water...


After the seahorse exhibit you took a very long escalator to the top of the aquarium where the glass triangles are in the photo above.


Onto the Otters...for me this was the my favorite part of the day, they were just so lively and hyper, they didn't sit still the entire time we were there (about 15 minutes); so much so that I had to take several videos because ALL of my photos are blurry, partly because it was the iPhone (slow shutter speed) but they didn't make things easy.

The rest of the exhibits trickled down finally bringing us back to the ground floor. Saw some really awesome stuff along the way, photos of which are below:

Poisonous Frog's.

Eventually we found the bottom of the aquarium and headed over to part 2. The first building was awesome so it was going to be hard to top, but it certainly didn't disappoint!


While walking over "I was wondering if an earthquake happened?" but it's actually just the crazy downtown Chattanooga sidewalks.


Once in the other building we took a series of escalators to the top and entered the second atrium where we ran into this fresh water stingray, pretty cool.


We then headed to Butterfly Garden which was an amazing experience. Upon entering the double sliding doors I was blasted with a huge fan placed over the doorway designed to prevent butterflies from leaving the garden. Now appearing windblown we walked into the garden and immediately were overwhelmed with the amount of butterflies in the atrium. They were pretty difficult to get good pictures of, not like my last encounter with butterflies, but I managed to get one okay one:


We also ran into this crazy cacoonery (incubator?) thing that had various species of butterflies, some where coming out while we were there, very neat!

Really neat, but kind of sad and gross all at the same time.

It would not be a trip to the aquarium without penguins. This guy had a pretty bad itch and was working hard to scratch it.


Next we hit the Jellyfish exhibit which I was really anticipating because they had advertised it as art on the side of the building, it really was. The video's show all:

The rest of the afternoon included some pretty cool exhibits as well:

This guy needed to see a dentist or Orthodontist; he had some serious teeth issues.

All-in-all it was a pretty awesome day and if you're ever in Chattanooga or near I would recommend it!

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Uptown Columbus Omnium - Race Report

The end of the road season here, I gave it one last hurrah after not racing road since April and decided to register for the Uptown Columbus Omnium, a first annual race that has a lot of promise.

After getting home from work around 4, I packed up all of my stuff being careful to not forget anything as 4 hours is a long way from home to realize you don't have your helmet, hopped in the car and headed south to Columbus, GA.

Michelle made the drive down from Blacksburg, VA to spend the weekend with me in Columbus, act as my support crew, and cheer on her very slow and unfit boyfriend. I'll never listed to a TomTom again as my 3.5-hour drive quickly turned into 4.5 after missing a turn. The only benefit of missing the turn was grabbing Moe's Southwest south of Atlanta, as always proper race fuel for a long weekend. After being so cautious about making sure I had everything, I realized I had forgotten my "authorized to ride" from since my license doesn't have my current category. We arrived around 10PM with the one hour time lost to EST, and went to be for an early morning.

At 6AM I dragged myself out of bed and headed across the street to grab breakfast, unfortunately the hotel didn't serve breakfast until 7 so McDonald's was my option. I grabbed a fruit and yogurt parfait and an orange juice before heading back to the hotel. A short drive to the race start, I arrived at the park where signing was taking place and grabbed my number and pinned it to m jersey. I didn't have enough time to get a full warm-up in, so I did what I could and warmed up for 15 minutes before heading to my start. At 8:12:00 I rolled away from the start for 6 miles of not so much fun. I think I have a mental issue with TT's, I need to just forget how my legs feel and go all out, lung-searing coughing-up-blood all out. I finished in 16:44.5, 9th of 10 in the Cat. 4's. 2nd to last, somewhat of a theme for the weekend. My photographer for the weekend didn't get any photos of the TT but I looked like garbage anyways, form and all I mean.

TT results, 8/9.

Here's the power data for my TT, my cadence is almost perfect linear (faulty data?) and as is my heart rate, but as you can see it drop after a delay post race, so I believe it's accurate, pretty incredible.

Garmin Data for the TT, it was an out and back with the first and last mile on a river walk bike path that was open, not my favorite!

I went back to the hotel and grabbed a quick a nap and then Subway for lunch. The road race was about half an hour east from Columbus in Hurtsboro, AL; I knew I was in trouble when the town was called Hurtsboro. When we arrived the temperature outside was 99 degrees and it didn't get any cooler over the next hour prior to my race start. A mediocre warm-up on my part of about 15 minutes increasing my heart rate on some back road before I headed towards the start line. The field included both 4/5 plus the masters 35+ category for a field of about 30. The pace was pretty quick from the start but completely manageable, with the usual lots of braking and caution in the first few miles. A wicked head wind strung out the field with the majority of the race being single file the first 15-20 riders. After we made the 3rd of 4 turns (big circuit) we began hitting some undulations and I simply mentally gave up, I believe I could have hung on longer but gave up on myself, this was at mile 24/30. I have a lot of work to do on mental toughness and confidence in my ability on the bike. I wound up finishing the race with 2 other guys a master and a 5 so didn't bother sprinting for the line, besides there's pretty much no point if you're not in the field anyways.

The start of the race. The Juniors also races with us and the on directly behind me is a 13 year old Cat. 4, accelerates like a cheetah, and took third in the crit on Sunday. Def. has a future in cycling, oh yeah he only weight 75 lbs.

More of the start.

It was a blistering 99 out, and felt warmer. Pretty miserable.

It hurt alright.

Didn't even try at the line. Didn't have much left anyways.

Power Data from the road race. Fell apart at 24.

Road Race Results.

Garmin data for the road race.

That evening Michelle took me out for an amazing dinner at The Loft. We had yet to find the nice part of the town and did some research to find out where to eat, our original decision The Cannon Brewery looked great and was right across the street, but this place a much bigger crowd and for me that's always a tell tale sign. It didn't disappoint. Coincidentally the nice part of town and the street where we ate was the center of Sundays crit. and set up a pretty nice backdrop for the race.

Broadway. Went out for a great dinner and awesome evening on the town.

The next morning I woke around 7 not finding much appetizing but managed to eat some of the hotel breakfast including a bagel and some OJ. We packed up our stuff and headed to the race for my 9:30 start time. When we arrived they were still in the process of setting up the race and I was notified the race had been delayed an hour, my only quarrel with the race other than Saturday's lack of bathrooms, but it wasn't a big deal.

About 40 minutes before my race I kitted up and hopped on the bike to warm up. I got a real solid warm-up in for the race on the trainer, with a pyramid style warm-up we used during collegiate racing this spring. I felt pretty great when I got off the bike taking in fuel as I warmed up, I put a little water in my bottle and got a lap in before heading to the Start/Finish. The course was a counterclockwise loop with 4 left hand turns, and a pretty good kicker before the start line we hit every lap.

The race started quick, similar to yesterday strung out in a single file line. The pace was manageable but I kept hitting bumps every lap that made me put extra effort in to not get gaped. Anything that attempted to get up the road was reeled in, one good effort by the local team setting up a block but the gap was quickly closed and nothing saw more than that for the remainder of the 30 minutes. Michelle grabbed a bunch of pictures:

The Start Line.

...And off the go.

Trying to stay latched on up the little kicker.

A better shop of the climb we did 15 or so times.

No idea what I'm looking at, the dude to my left won the race.

Cool shot of the river walk and corner.

I swear no matter what line I took I found a pothole on huge crack in the road.


The finishing sprint.

Got a real nice warm-up in for the race and felt pretty good.

Power data for the race.

At the end of the race I finished in the pack and closed on the Mercer guy in front of me to beat him out of his spot. I felt good about lasting the whole race since it was my first Cat. 4 crit. Took 10/12 in the 4's.

Crit. results.

The road season is now behind me, or in front of me I suppose. This weekend begins cross which I'm super stoked about.

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Montreal - Part Quatre

After an amazing day watching the Grand Prix Cycliste Montreal, I headed back to my hostel to grab my bag and head for my train to Quebec City. Before I left town I stopped at Poco Rico, a rotisserie chicken place that's a few doors down from Schwart's and was also pointed out on my Montreal Cycle Tour.

The feature here is obviously the rotisserie chicken, but the big deal are the potatoes that are placed below the chicken as they cook where all the fat drippings land. Not the most healthy thing in the world but delicious none the less. After this terribly unhealthy meal I grabbed a Bixi bike to the hostel and retrieved my bag.

Poco Rico - Delicious rotisserie chicken and potatoes that's sure to take 5 years off my life.

mmm...Deadly.

The metro in the Montreal was good but finding the train station was the most difficult experience I've had ever with a transit system, including Paris and New York. After getting slightly lost on my way to the station I caught my train, I accidentally walked into a tattoo and piercing convention, no lie; I walk into a tattoo and piercing convention in toe with my luggage case and shoulder bag, looking VERY out of place.

I finally made it to Quebec City around 9PM, got maybe the scariest cab ride of my life, even after visiting NYC; this dude was driving a Prius and thought it was a Ferrari, redlining the thing every time he accelerated. Stayed at the Hilton in Quebec City, very nice hotel!

Sweet view from my hotel. Really neat at night.

The next day I had training for work that lasted until 5, but in the evening my boss and I headed out and walker around the city eventually finding a place to eat recommended by a local.

Parlement (Parliament) building.

Parc des Champs-de Batilles.

The parc was right on the water and pretty cool, after walking around a bit we worked up an appetite and headed towards dinner. A delicious eggplant lasagna and a raspberry cheesecake and cappuccino for dessert.

By the time I got my cappuccino however the dessert was gone, it would've been a pretty picture.

Sweet view of the streets in the morning on my way to Paillard Cafe.

Paillard Cafe. They didn't open until 7:30 so I had time to walk around, where I found the photo above.

Cafe au Lait, Brioche au Chocolate et Brioche au Sucre (breads with sugar and chocolate).

The rest of the week was filled with work and more delicious food. Eventually all good things must come to an end and I headed home with an early flight to Toronto before catching two more flights to Birmingham, AL. Just in time to be home for one day before heading to Columbus, GA for an omnium weekend.

Sunrise in the side-view-mirro, headed home.

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