Honolulu Marathon Wheel Chair Race

This morning 6 of us HACCer's: Jim, John, Habi, Mariane, Bryant and myself; got up before 3 AM and headed to Wikiki to provide an escort for the wheel chair racers in the Honolulu Marathon. The early morning weather on Hickam was warm and dry. I almost left my vest and armwarmers in the house before I headed to the shopette to catch a ride with Jim and Habi. I figured it was going to be a nice dry ride much like we experienced yesterday. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. As we got out of the car by diamond head, the sky broke loose with a drenching rain. It wasn't long before we were drenched and I was very happy to have those extra layers.

The rain subsided a bit as we made our way to the start line. However, 5 minutes before the start it let loose again and kept raining for the first few minutes of the race.
We split into groups. My group of 6 started in a v formation at the front of the leaders. The lead athletic quickly broke away from the pack. Two of our riders slid back to help with the following riders. I slid behind the lead rider, last years winner Masazumi Soejima, and stayed on his tail for the entire ride. Man was that guy strong. He would run up to 22 mph on the flats and didn't slow much below 15 on the climbs and sped up to 25ish on the downhills. I thought he would slow down a the end. He never did and finished 5 minutes ahead of second place. After the race we loaded up the bikes and headed for coffee. I made it home by 830.

The hills were alive with the sound of my heavy breathing

After a week of rain kept us on the flat roads of Hickam, I suggested an optional Saturday ride to include the climbs at Camp Smith and Aiea Heights. Not sure what I was thinking. I rode my old faithful Bianchi complete with fenders. I figured we would be getting wet. The weather turned out to be beautiful making me wish I would have ridden the much lighter Cube especially on the steep section of Aeia Heights. My original plan also included a climb of royal summit but few objected to the suggestion of doing the flat Ford Island to scope out a potential crit course.

While riding around Ford Island I took the opportunity to snap a quick picture of the battle ship Missouri which sits as a museum just off the Island. A base cop saw me snap the picture and stopped me. Apparently they are very particular of where you take pictures of Pearl Harbor. He was very nice about it as he asked to review my pictures. I was a little concerned that he would have to look at each of the over 300 pics I currently have stored on the camera. Luckily he just scrolled through the first couple of Pics and said they were fine.

On the way back to Hickam we went past the Healing Field. The Healing Field is a next to the Arizona monument where the American Legion placed and American Flag for every one lost during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We stopped for pictures before heading back to Hickam via Pearl Harbor.

66th Anniversary of the Bombing of Oahu

Today marked the the 66th Anniversary of the Japanese bombing of the Island of Oahu. Most people refer to it as the Bombing of Pearl Harbor because of the extensive damage to the Pacific Fleet that was docked there. However, the Japanese didn't only bomb the Navy Base but also bombed the Army Air Force bases of Hickam, Wheeler, and Bellows . Hickam sits right besides Pearl Harbor and was a primary target of the Japanese. The building I currently work in which houses the PACAF HQ was at the time the largest barracks in the Army. It was attacked and over 50 airman were killed. The building still contains scares from bullets that were strafed across it's facade. A monument in the Courtyard of Hero's commemerates the sacrifices of the men who were killed here.

Today a ceremony was held to mark the anniversary of the attack. Attending the ceremony were some of the remaining survivors of the attack. Unfortunately the numbers of survivors has decreased over the years. In a few years there will not be any of these brave men left. My wife and I's grandfathers were both in the Navy during WWII serving in the pacific. My grandfather was a Sea be and was sent to Pearl after the attack to help with the restoration. Chris's Grandfather spent time in port on Pearl during the war. Today made me wish I would have been stationed here at the beginning of my career when they would have been able to visit and see the bases. My Grandfather is still alive but his health is very poor. Chris's died a few years ago. The last few times I visited my grandfather, most of his conversations were about the war and the places he served in the Pacific. The memorial at Punch Bowl Cemetery traces the path of the Pacific Battles. I was able to follow along with the places my grandfather who we always called "Red", served. As a Sea Be, he was one of the first to land in such places as Guam, and Wake Island. Had it not been for the dropping of the Bomb bring the end of the War, he would have been landing on Japanese soil and it is hard to tell if he would have survived and if our country would have survived as well.

Today's ceremony also made me reflect the sacrifice my brother made for our freedom. At the end of the ceremony, taps was played, a 21 gun salute was fired and Amazing Grace was played on the bag pipes just like it was done at Josh's funeral. I can't think of anything more appropriate than the playing of Amazing Grace on the Bag Pipes to commemorate the death of someone who died for our country.

Some of my favorite cycling websites

The Internet contains a plethora of cycling related websites. Here are a three of my favorite;

http://www.bikesatwork.com/

This is the website for a company that builds bike trailers for moving stuff. Not the small trailers you use to haul the kiddies or camping supplies but trailers for carrying groceries or furniture. The website provides advise on a variety of business adventures that involve biking.

http://roadbikerider.com/

Roadbikerider.com produces a weekly newsletter full of good articles on road biking. I have subscribed to the newsletter for several years. The newsletter is free. They also have a premium service that has additional information. Being cheep I find the free site contains all I need. The site is ran by a couple of riders that are in their 60s and still going strong.

http://mtbr.com/

This site has reviews for everything from bottom brackets to trails in Alaska. I use it anytime I am thinking about purchasing bike stuff.

Civilized Saturday Morning Ride Sans Ben

I have ridden in December before, but usually it entailed many layers of fleece, Lycra and wool. Not today. The weather was perfect. However, the fear of rain must have dampened the enthusiasm for riding as we had one of the lowest turn outs for a Saturday morning ride that we have had since I started riding with the HACC. John, Jim, Bryant, Marianne, Habi, Steve L. and I arrived at parking area with about every form of road bike manufactured today. John had is touring bike with full finders, Jim his cross bike, Bryant his tri/timetrial ride and the rest of us on traditional road bikes, mine with bolt on aero bars. The weather turned out to be perfect. It was clear at the parking lot but as we climbed KoleKole pass a blanket of fog rolled keeping the road nice and damp for the decent.

We kept a very civilized pace as we road up Kam highway. Almost berried on in a deep ditch on the side of the road was a car. After we passed the car we decided that we should go back to make sure no one was trapped in the car. We turned around and stopped at the car. On closer inspection we noticed the purple mustang was missing it's wheels and tires. Either the folks who slid into the ditch blew all four tires and took them off with the hope of getting them patched or the car was placed in the ditch by after it had been stripped for the used parts business. The car wasn't the only vehicle on the road to experience problems with it's tires. Bryant experienced a flat at Dillingham field. Unfortunately his spare tube fared no better than the original as the CO2 from his quick pump froze the stem as it leaked out of the hole in the his spare tube. Luckily Habi had 2 tubes and loaned Bryant one. This was especially luck as Habi also experienced a flat on the ride. We stopped at the lovely Mokuleia beach park. This hidden gem is not found on many travel brochures. It is a traditional watering hole for our Saturday rides. The shower stand is the always a hub of activity. Today we were entertained by some kids having more fun that should be allowed while washing dishes.

Due to the popularity of data mining and graphs in our circle of blogs, we decided to track our caffeine levels for this ride. Here is the graph.

To boost the levels we stopped at the Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa.

After a cup of Jo we headed up Pineapple hill then back to Schofield keeping a mild pace and enjoying the scenery and the conversation. MII (Missing in Inaction) were Ben, Casey, Scott, Aaron, Amy, Julie, Dave and a few others of our regular riders who must of decided that the comfort of their beds was more important than riding on the 1st of December. Unfortunately for them, they missed a great ride.

Hello Kailua Beach, Goodbye Oakleys

On Saturday, we decided to take my sister to our favorite beach in Kailua HI. This beach has been ranked in the top 10 beaches in the world and it is about a 20 minute drive from our house. The weather was perfect and there were nice waves for boogie boarding. Anxious to get started in threw my hat and shirt off and jumped into the water with my board. The first wave I caught was great as it pushed me to the shore. The next wave was also great except I slid off the board and got caught in the current. I forgot I slid my prized Oakley sunglasses on the top of my head when I took off my shirt. The current pulled them off before I could grab them. Unfortunately the current was also mixing up the the sand so you couldn't see. I walked around in the general area that they fell but couldn't find them. It kind of dampened my enthusiasm for a while but it didnt' take long before I was back in the water. Our Dog Ginger loves the beach. She likes to follow us out and ride the waves while we boogie board. The only problem is she tries to climb up you scratching the heck out of your back. To fix this we put her on top of the boogie board and let her ride. We stayed on the beach for about 3 hours then headed back to meet up with some people we knew from Beale to go out for Chinese food. It was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving Meal

I got home from my ride around 9 am. Everyone else was still asleep. After I rousted the troops, I checked the Turkey. Our goal was to get it done around 1200 to free up the oven for the rest of the meal so we could eat around 2. I checked the turkey expecting it to be slowly reaching doneness. However, since I was cooking it in a roasting pan and had the oven set at 350 instead of 325, the turkey was almost done and it was only 945. We had to kick the meal into overdrive. Luckily, Chris prepared many of the items on Wednesday so it wasn't too bad. Everyone kicked in to help.

We had everything finished and started eating by 12. It was the earliest Thanksgiving meal I have ever eaten. It was kind of nice getting done so early as we were able to go down to Waikiki and take in some of the sites including a nice sunset at Ala Moana beach and the Christmas lights.