Getting in over my head

Ah well, yes I suppose gutting my basement, adding and replacing the windows, framing all the rooms plus completely overhauling the bathroom and thinking I could get this all done in about two months was a bit optimistic. This was my off season project I was going to get it all done before training started, ha!
I gutted with little despair just lots of debris yet with the bonus of therapeutic sledge hammering. I got the old windows out and framed in the new with pretty much no help (minus one tearful late night that I could no longer control my hammer so my good friends came to help me put about 4-5 nails in one stud so I wouldn't have a gaping 2x3ft hole in my house, thanks SP and JS). I framed the entire basement, 6.5 ft ceilings meant every darn 2x4 had to be cut BTW 80 year old houses especially basement are anything but plumb, square and level. Arduous job measuring and cutting each piece I have no idea how many trips I made out of my basement to the garage to make cuts and frustratedly return to re cut. My mantra , measure 3-4 times cut twice ;) All this framing started by hand meaning that every 3.5 inch nail I was placing was by my own not so skilled hammering. Lesson learned, there are power tools for a reason! Once I got the framing nail gun things progressed at a more reasonable rate. Unfortunately I didn't stumble on this epiphany of using such tool until my wrist tendon was blown and I simply couldn't lift let alone use a hammer. Framing done, albeit not perfect I was feeling like things were moving along. Until I was sidetrackedby dating, it was fun and good for me but dating also halted both my basement and much of my winter training (icy weather get a little blame but not much and the pesky car accident that messed up my back gets its fair share). We broke up no more sidetrack :( so now I am back to my project.
I hired a guy to do the pluming, I know my limits ;) ! He tore through the floor added a drain for my new shower and plumbed the rough in's for the fixtures in less than a day! Money well spent.
The re-wire and new wiring job drove me nuts mostly because the guy who I bought the house from must have been high when he did the original wiring, I call it the THC wire job. I ended up replacing most of the wire in the basement plus added new for lights, bath fan and radiant heat for the tile floor. The idea of radiant flooring is lovely, warm smooth tile under your feet as you step out of the shower, installing it, a very different beast! My tile job looked great until I started walking on it. I had to level the floor first not as bad as I thought it would be but there is a learning curve (I started on the xy=0 axis) this was also the starting local for laying tile over radiant heat with it's cute little probe that sticks up 1/8 of an inch in one stinking spot. Due to this I will now be pulling out a few tiles for the do-over. Nice.

Onto dry wall, I decided that this was something I could not do alone I asked my neighbor who is in the biz if he could recommend someone. Sure! the guy who build the house down the street, perfect. He comes over gives me an estimate of time but only works time & materials not preset price. He say $40/ hour he will bring a helper couple days to hang. Sounded good to me. Now this is why people don't trust contractors, 4 days later still not done, the helper he brought for 2 of the days he says he got for $30/hour instead of the $40. That is good right? No, not so good his "helper" he was quoting me is to be on top of his $40/ hour! Last time I checked that would equal $70/hour not what he originally told me and not until after the guy had come and gone. So what to do? Step one, kick myself in the head for doing exactly what I KNOW not to do! Always get it in writing and don't hire for time and materials. Step two, tell the guy that this isn't what he had originally had told me and the time factor is now double plus extra labor that I won't have money to have him finish the job. Well that solves that I say it nicely I am looking out for him so he doesn't get stiffed some money he agrees to put in one more day at set hours and to get all the drywall done. That is today, we shall see.

I picked out paint colors thinking that this part of the project was a weekend away. Not so much, I will be mudding my walls for a few days ( shh! I am being optimistic) alright, double the time double the cost, I should know the drill by now.

This weekend I am going to Sequim #3 I'll give it my all even if it's only for a lap or so ;) Time to start doing what is fun.

My basement will be there when I get home.

Will I ever ride again?

Well, yes. But will I be racing anytime soon, I don't know. Something about back injury and my inability to let my house projects slide for a while. I was going to race at Sequim #2 but decided that Saturday was a perfect day to lay tile in my basement bathroom and new wine cellar (the "cellar" will also dub as a puppy room once I get my puppy. Another story).

Anyway who knew that I could feel so bad after bending, kneeling and lifting heavy objects. I guess I did, but to feel like I did a max lift day and got run over by a truck was more than I had bargained for. Saturday night I cancelled race day. Instead Sunday I did the grout, cleaned up all the tools and random clutter so my drywall guy could walk around today. Tile looks great, I feel somewhat better and will try to sneak out on a ride today.

Did my 1st indoor TT and CycleU. Pretty cool, I kind of suck. But it is really interesting to see why. I go out way too hard and then blowup. A warm up would have been nice too but based on my past TT's it is par for the course as well. Fun to watch my watts. I am a geek when it comes to stats (part of my real job so I guess that is good) My average was low in my opinion 197 my max was 400 up the final climb. Max HR 189 ave 179. This tells me all kinds of stuff that I can work on. I plan on it as soon as I am able to really ride again.

I feel like I have missed so much racing, really it is early but each week my fellow CAT4 are racing and I am not I feel like I am even further behind. Fitness can return but I am supposed to be the Captain and my teammates barely know who I am. I don't care about winning (not that I could right now) I just want to be out there.

Guess I will settle for Seward rides a couple indoor TT's, downloading Polar data and being a number geek no matter how sad those numbers may be.

Winter Training is done

Why if training is done am I not racing? Well injury for one. A dude who drops his cell phone while waiting for the light to turn green rear ends me, my back gets all jacked up... nice. So now I ride the life cycle and sneak out on rides when no one is looking. OK no one really is looking or cares that much but I can't ride hard and I need to heal. Meanwhile Mason Lake #1 went down. As a seasoned Cat4 I could tell by the finish photos that not much happened all 24 miles downhill around the corner and sprint. Not much fo a race, wish I was there.