The NNT Nation is an organized group of athletes focused on inflicting pain and suffering to Triple Threat Racing (3T) on any given Saturday during the Saturday Morning Shootout.

For immediate press release

7/31/2010
Charlotte, NC

The first official showdown between The NTT Nation (Non Triple Threaters) and 3T (Triple Threat) was a test of willpower and team strategy that left the 3T team coming home down West Blvd on fumes and The NTT Nation celebrating their sweet victory. The day started with a good showing by The NTT Nation having five riders in the peloton (Dave (Tyler's friend), Nick, Redmond, Todd, Tyler, & Waldo) while 3T only had two guys (Murph, Woody) to fend off the barrage of attacks that were soon to come. Just after the neutral zone Todd and Redmond fired off attack after attack which Murph and Woody had to chase down to avoid the 10 point break away points. Woody would then counter attack with no luck since he had The Red(mond) Rocket covering him like a warm blanket. This continued until the sprint stages got under way.

STAGE 1: (downhill sprint on Mt. Holly Rd): Tied: 0
1st: Waldo (3), 2nd: Woody (2), 3rd: Murph (1)
Sprint 1 was a down hill sprint which lines up perfectly for The NTT Nation to get "The Man From The Isle of Waldo" into a position for a stage victory. Waldo was the only man in the field that can sprint downhill at over 50 mph so we knew he was a shoe in if in the right position.

STAGE 2: (slight uphill sprint @ stop ahead sign at end of 15 min slight incline on Old NC 27): The NTT Nation +2
* Can't remember exact placings.
On the lead up to Sprint 2 the 3T team put the pressure on the peloton and whittled The NTT Nation down to three riders (Dave, Nick, Tyler). The NTT Nation came out ahead by 2 points.

STAGE 3: (KOM on Spencer mountain): The NTT Nation +5
1st: Nick (5), 2nd: Woody (3), 3rd: Dave (1)
This stage was the beginning of the end for 3T.

STAGE 4: (flat sprint in Lowell): The NTT Nation +5
1st: Nick (3), 2nd: Woody (2), 3rd: Tyler (1)
No gain in points on this sprint but a big loss in energy.

STAGE 5: (KOM on McAdenville): The NTT Nation +12
1st: Nick (5), 2nd: Tyler (3), 3rd: Woody (1)
The first 1-2 punch of the day for either team. Let the creaming begin.

STAGE 6: (KOM on Cramerton): The NTT Nation + 19
1st: Dave (5), 2nd: Nick (3), 3rd: Murph (1)
The NTT Nation sent Dave up the road with no response from 3T. Another dominating mountain stage by The NTT Nation .

STAGE 7: (uphill sprint on Armstrong Ford Rd.): The NTT Nation + 23
1st: Tyler (3), 2nd: Nick (2), 3rd: Murph (1)
The NTT Nation attacked on the downhill leading into this sprint. A group of three regrouped midway through the climb until The NTT Nation launched their man again to yet another victory. We're starting to see a pattern here.

STAGE 8: (final sprint across bridge on Wilkinson): The NTT Nation +29
1st: Dave (3), 2nd: Tyler (2), 3rd: Nick (1)
This stage was what we call total domination. Also known as the trifecta or the triple crown. Call it what you will....it was a thing of beauty. The NTT Nation send Dave on a solo attack and got up the road while 3T could do nothing but pedal as if they were in quick sand. Tyler and Nick followed suit while Murph and Woody were strategizing their counter attack up the hill after the sprint. Directly after the sprint Murph launched off the front and opened a gap only to be closed within 40 seconds by the The NTT Nation member formerly known as Nick.

BREAKAWAY: The NTT Nation +49
Tyler (10), Nick (10)
This attack was like taking candy from a baby. Just after the rail road crossing Tyler attacked to stack up some more points against the weakened 3T crew and after about 15 seconds Nick decided to go for "Double Jeopardy" and rub it in even further. The duo stayed away for the minimum 3 mins and tried to wait up on the 3T crew but you can only coast so slowly.

RECAP: The NTT Nation made a net gain of 49 point over 3T!! As you can imagine, this was quite embarrassing for 3T to have a group of scrappers dominate them so handily. To officially be considered as "skunked" you need to get beat by more than 50 points so this is about as close to a skunking as you will ever see. The Saturday Morning Shootout has never seen such a beat down as was seen by our very eyes last weekend. It was a day that will go down in the history books as one of the greatest ass whoopings of all time. Team strategy and starting numbers were key to opening the flood gates of stage victories for The NTT Nation. The Red(mond) Rocket and T-O-Double-D Kaish played an integral role in dishing out body shots to 3T in the form of attacks and covering moves early in the day. The Man From The Isle of Waldo took the first stage victory which set the tone for the rest of the day. From that point on the remaining The NTT Nation dominated the mountain stages and once 3T was out of gas they launched a two man breaker that stayed away until the day was over. If 3T wants to win next week they will need to field a much larger team and hope for a miracle from the cycling gods. They are now 49 points down in the yearly standings and can only hope to chip away at that deficit in the weeks and months to come.

Claire is now 23 weeks old.  Her neck is getting stronger and she loves to color coordinate her dresses with her blankets.


It's only fitting for the "Claire Bear" to have a bear's head on her butt.  She's starting to tolerate tummy time but still doesn't like it much.


We broke ground on Steve's deck on Sunday and were able to get the framing completed for the "upper deck".  His deck is going to have two levels.  The first level is ~8ft X 8ft and the second level will be two steps down and will fill out the complete 24ft X 24ft deck.  We got a lot accomplished on day 1.

RUNNING RECAP:
* 40 mi running (6:23 pace ave) :: 4 hrs 15 mins

Our tenant from our Highland Creek house called us this week because she came home to a flooded house after being gone for 5 hours.  The hose to the toilet in the upstairs bathroom came disconnected and was spraying water for 5 hours.


Nearly all of the flooring has been torn out of the whole house from the restoration company due to saturation.  Their dehumidifiers have been running for 4 days.


Upstairs hallway.


Stairs.


The drywall from the ceiling fell down onto the living room floor and some of our tenant's furniture.


The ceiling had to be completely removed in the living room.


The wood in the foyer was trashed and had to be removed as well.


Like I said, nearly all of the flooring was removed.  Even in the dining room.

Our Highland Creek rental is a 4BR/2.5BA house up in the university area.  We lived there from 2000-2004 and decided to rent it out when we moved out.  When we got a call from our tenant saying that there was water damage I couldn't have imagined the extent of the damage done.  Luckily our tenant and her children were gone on vacation for the remainder of the week so they didn't have to live in these conditions.  We met with the insurance adjuster and are in the process of getting quotes from some contracters to see if we can get this taken care of before they get back from vacation.

Playing around on the blanket with my little girl.


Jen's parents came for another short visit from Illinois this week.



Claire giving me the staredown while hanging out in the baby bjorn.


Claire showing her support for the largest mammals on land.


Clarke & Katie came over for dinner on Saturday night.


A nice shot of a beer that tastes great and is less filling.

RUNNING RECAP:

Claire is laughing a lot.  She's got a really funny laugh that makes me laugh and then she laughs even more.  I say she laughs like Frankenstein.


Claire and I were playing Charades.  It took me a while to figure it out but she was playing out the Leaning Toward of Pisa.


Mom playing Pat-A-Cake with Claire.


Dad and I made 4 corn hole sets while he was here.  Marquette colors!!


We made two "Extreme Cornhole" sets and two regular sets.  The extreme cornhole attachment adds a 10 point hole and a couple of drink holders.


Dad holding Claire before they headed back to Wisconsin.


We moved Claire up to the level 3 nipple this week because she was taking an hour or so to eat.  She's eating much faster now.

RECAP:
The photos recap most of the week.  I also changed web hosting companies from WebHost4Life to Arvixe because WebHost4Life "upgraded" their systems and ever since doing so our websites were having uptime issues.  I had been using Webhost4Life for 7 years and told them I would continue using their service if they could fix the issue but after a few weeks I decided to make the switch.

We also moved Claire to a 4 hour routine instead of her old 3 hour routine and it seems to be working just fine.  She's sleeping between 7-9 hrs each night.

TRAINING:
Total Aerobic Hours: 3 hrs 38 mins
Running: 32 mi :: 3 hrs 38 mins (6:47 pace ave)

I've set some goals to get back into running shape for next year (2011) so I'll start posting progress here again.  This was my 3rd week of running over 20 miles.  My previous two weeks were both 23 miles.  I plan to slowly work my way up to 60 miles of running with 3 hours of cycling and hold there.  Right now I'm just trying to build a solid foundation of aerobic miles so won't really be doing much work above 160 bpm (lactate threshold minus 20 bpm) until I see that my pace and heart rate remain constant during my 10 mile run test.  I also won't be working above that level until my paces at 160 bpm are between 5:40-5:45 pace.  I suspect that will take another 2-3 months of aerobic development.  My plan is to run 2-3 runs per week at 160 bpm and the rest between 145-150 bpm to ensure that I'm working the lower aerobic zones as well.  The heat is definitely slowing these paces at the moment but I'm in no rush to start any faster work yet anyway.

From top left to bottom right: Jen & Mom, Katie & Clarke, Denise, ilan & Soda


Dave, Laura, Lori & Ashley, Jason & Jello Shot.



watkins, Hudzik, Christy & Matt, Cummins & Bad Attitude.


Tyler & Jordan, Laura/Denise/Meagan, Matt working the grill, Dad guarding the trash can.


Frank, Farrell, Carrie, John w/ State Trooper shades.


Colleen, Bob, Soda, Melissa.

RECAP:
We hosted a 4th of July party on Saturday evening.  These are the photos that I took before my camera battery died.  Good food, drinks, company, and 80s music!!  It took me a couple of days to recover from this one...

My parents were in town this week.  They were really excited to get to meet Claire.  I hope we look that good in our mid to late 50s!!


My mom, Julie, relaxing and enjoying our dinners out on the deck.


My dad, Mike, thinking about getting us another Miller Lite.  He eventually did.


We made sure that my parents got a chance to feed Claire whenever she was up for a pull on the bottle.  They did a great job!


Here's my mom making Claire smart by reading to her.  I think they are reading a Math Physics textbook.


Jen and Claire on Independence Day.  Claire is sporting the red, white, and blue.


Nice family photo before the 4th of July deck party.

RECAP:
My parents were in town this week and I think they came at a great time.  Claire has more of a personality now and the deck is done so we got to spend some good time outside.  It's great to have them staying with us and getting a chance to spend a lot of time with Claire.  During the week my dad and I built 4 corn hole pits for the party.