Back pain

I wrote an article more then a year ago and it's Friday again and my back hurts again. I've found a few videos (from a tweet) on youtube about maintaining a good posture in front of the computer:


Via creativebits.org

Kezdimaraton 2011

This was the hardest race that I've finished. Seven and a half hours of racing, but it was worth it.

I woke up at four a'clock in the morning and after a long ride in the car we got to Targu Secuiesc. My friends were telling me that we should try the long track which was 75km. I never raced before on such a long track I was preparing for the 40 km race. I knew it will rain but I chose the long race...

At first it was a fast race, there was a long road ride, we were going with 40 km/h. After that there was a long climb. I wasn't going fast because I was keeping my energy for later.

We didn't finish the first climb and it started raining. This made the first downhill section very hard. It was very slippery so on I was running with the bike a few times. After that we had to complete a loop two times. The first time it was harder because there was a lot of mud, and the second time it started to dry but I was getting tired so I fell down. The climb was very hard, because of the mud and rocks we couldn't get on the bike so we had to push a lot. Before the second climb we had to go threw a swamp to :)

After the two killer laps we had a long down hill, but it was so muddy that it was impossible to ride it everywhere on the bike. My shoes got so muddy that my feet got stuck in the pedals and I felt down when I wanted to get off the bike.

We had to get off the mountain on the same route we climbed up. On a fast dh section we missed the signs and we got off course a bit :(

Ant the end I just wanted to get on the fast road section because my bike was making strange noises but the route back in town was off road.

When we got to the finish line nobody was there because we exceeded the time limit by a half hour. The organizers were nice enough to let me get on stage to claim my second place. I was so happy that I finally won something and all that hard work wasn't useless.

I always wanted a medal but instead I got a cup and I was very very happy :D

I even won some great prizes, a chain, grips and a tube:

Stats:
    - time: 7:01:11 in motion and about 7 and a half hours racing
    - distance: 79,75 km
    - average speed: 11,3 km/h
    - max speed: 47,9km/h

It was the hardest race but I was very happy that I could finish and it was a dream come true when I found out that I was second in my age group :)

My first duathlon

There are more and more competitions in town and that is a good thing. Next Wednesday I will try a new kind of race, the duathlon:

It will be only an 8 kilometer bike ride and 3 kilometers of running so it should be a lot of fun :)

Meatless

When I saw this video I thought that I should have meet free days, like the Meatless Monday from the video.

I just realized last night that yesterday I had no meat. It wasn't so hard especially after a Sunday with a lot of meat. I don't want to be a vegetarian, I like stakes, but it is nice to give a little rest to your digestive system, especially that it takes a lot of energy to digest meat. And in the meantime you are doing a good thing to the environment :)

Sunny side up in bread

I saw this recipe somewhere on the web, but I don't remember where... It looked interesting so on a Saturday morning I got two bread rolls and four eggs. I cut the rolls in two and I made a hole in them. I seasoned the eggs in the buns with salt , pepper and paprika and threw them in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Served with a pickle it was very delicious:

What is Mountainbiking about?

Cyclepassion - May

I almost forgot to change the girl on my wall this month.

This month in the Cyclepassion calendar you can see from the  Lotto Ladies Team Veronica Andréasson from Sweden.  Her tactic is "Always have a maximum of 10 asses in front of you!"

Thanks again To Cyclepassion and light-bikes for this great calendar.

Geocaching

I read about geocaching a long time ago on mountain-bike-brasov.blogspot.com. It is a lot of fun, it combines hiking wit a bit of thrill. The idea is that you have to go to interesting places like mountains or statues and find a little box. All you need for this game is a device with gps, like a phone and some small things you can put in the box. You can get the coordinates for the boxes and more details of the game on geocaching.com.

I was in the forest near the Zoo hunting for the boxes. There are a lot of cool things in the boxes and a log book where you can write something.

There are a few other boxes in town so I will find those also. I will search for boxes everywhere I will go. There are a lot of geocahes in the mountains and I want to find them :)

LE: I am a guest writer on outinmures.ro so I'll be writing articles in romanian over there, you can read about geocaching in this post :)

Gepida MTB MArathon

Sunday I was racing again. I was on home grounds so I was feeling very confident. I knew the course a bit and I was feeling strong so I was hoping for a podium finish.

I didn't start so fast, I don't like fast start but as I started to wam up I started to get in front. I passed a lot of people on the first smaller climb then on the second climb I passed more people.  I had 3 guys in front of me before the first hard dh section. My front break isn't working right so I pushed hard and passed everybody so I could go full speed down the hill without using the front brake.

It was a lot of fun riding without using the front brake so much, it involved a few jumps and drifts and a lot of speed.

On the second hard climb I had my first energy gel. A few guys passed me before I got back in my rythm after going off the course a bit. The next 10 km were sometimes hard, I started to get tired but I was very motivated so I pushed hard.

After 20 km, before the last climb I reached to grab my second gel but I approached a ditch and fell down hard. I had a few bruises but I got back on the bike fast and I started to push very hard. The last kilometers went by very fast I was going full speed. I was very happy when I finished because I had a very good time, only one and a half hours. Some people even told me that I finished on the podium.

I was very dissapointed when I saw the the rankings... I lost by only two and a half minutes. I was very dissapointed that I've finished only in fourth place :(

Knowing the course a bit helped a lot, but I still managed to get off the course, I think I need to explore those hills in the future.

Stats:
    - time: 01:30:26
    - distance: 27,64 km
    - average speed: 18 km/h
    - max speed 57,7,7 km/h

I hope there will be more pictures because I saw a few photographers on the course

Critical Mass in Targu Mures

Saturday there were a lot of people in green shirts on bikes in the city. The time for the spring critical mass was here so I went to take some pictures and to ride with a lot of people. The ride was slow and it had about 10 kilometers. We cycled threw some of the major parts of the city. At the finish, on the side of the Mures river water and bread with grease was waiting for us :)

Here are some pictures:

More pics here.