Why am I letting you into the inner sanctum of bicycling, you ask? Because this year I finally put my money where my mouth is and raced my bicycle, and in doing so, left the “cyclist” moniker behind to seize the title of “Bike Racer”. Up until this point I had ridden centuries, which are 100-mile charity rides. While these are challenging in their own right (see below for an extreme example), they bear no resemblance to a bike race other than we get to wear numbers on our jerseys.

My first dip into racing was the Georgia Gran Prix, a 5-day, 6-race series in North Georgia. It was a daunting undertaking for me, but I had the time of my life. As a beginner, I race in the lowest category (Cat-5), but this series had no specific Cat-5 race, so I was thrown in the bunch with the slightly more experienced Cat-4 racers. After a humbling first day due to a mechanical problem with my chain, I recovered with some results I was very proud of. Most of all, I learned boatloads of tactics and skills for future races. Shannon and the kids didn’t make the trip, but my Mom and Mike were super-supportive, making it to cheer me on at many of the races – even surprising me at the Covington criterium race.

After the Georgia races, the bug had officially bit me. I came home eager to race again. Unfortunately, work and such did not allow for the required training to make it to a few other races I had hoped to do. However, nothing would stand in the way of me racing in our hometown race, the Pensacola Cycling Classic. This is the race I watched with Gavin the very first week we moved here last year. It was that race (along with the encouragement of an excellent bike club here) that inspired me to take the leap into racing.

There was an incredibly strong (and large) “beginner” (and I use that term loosely here) field at the Pensacola race this year. While I had hoped to end up on the podium in my category, I was very happy with a 6th place finish overall. One of our teammates took first, so that’s always a plus too. A local race is always a cool thing to do, especially when your family can come out and see you race. An added bonus was that there was a kids fun-race that Faye participated in. While we might have to develop Faye’s sprinting skills, it was very cool to ride a lap with her on the race course in downtown Pensacola.

The week following the Pensacola race I joined some of my co-workers and fellow club members in a century in Georgia. Now I just spent all this time telling you how much better racing is to century rides, but there is (at least) one major exception. The 6-Gap Century in Dahlonega, Georgia is an entire different monster from anything I had ridden in the past. The course, which travels through some of the routes of the former Tour de Georgia, includes over 11,000 feet of climbing spread over (you guessed it) six peaks. There is really no good way to train for something like this in flat-as-a-board western Florida, but I did what I could, mostly resting on my racing fitness and a more mountain-friendly gear ratio on my bike.

Most centuries I’ve ridden are more of a “fun” event, where people stop at lots of rest stops, eat good food along the way, and don’t push it too hard. This one was more like what most people think of when they envision a marathon. While someone does win a marathon, most enter for the physical challenge and aren’t necessarily “racing”. Our few very short breaks on the course were to fill water bottles, grab some form of solid fuel and keep going. While there is no “winner” of 6-Gap, everyone tries to aim for a finish time. Mine was under 7 hours (which I missed by only 54 seconds). For those that haven’t figured it out, I love to ride my bike. I love to talk about bikes, I love to watch bike races, I even love to just look at bikes in a store. In short, I love everything about bikes (except those weird bearded recumbent riders). After saying all that, nearing the top of the biggest climb of the day, I never wanted to get off my bike more in my life. I thought I had known suffering on a bike, but these mountains brought it to an entirely new level. Most long rides like this are climactic at the end, and there is a rush and huge feeling of accomplishment upon crossing the finish line. Not so with 6-Gap. All of that great stuff comes at the top of the climbs (the two big ones in particular), and the end is just… the end. It helped that my loving family was waiting for me at the top of the second one for high-fives and some much needed motivation.

There was one big benefit to the brutal climbing, aside from the sheer feeling of accomplishment. The descents. Maybe it’s my profession, but I love speed. I topped out at 56.8MPH on some of the descents at 6-Gap. There is something very cool about going that fast on a human powered vehicle (especially when you get to pass cars). For those data-geeks (i.e. other cyclists) out there, you can find my Garmin data here.

So maybe I’ll still straddle the line between bike racer and cyclist. As long as I get to keep pedaling and doing what I love, I’m OK with that. Plus, in a few years I’ll get to take on the title of “coach” when I get Faye on her first real road bike…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost six months since I returned from my last deployment. The first few months of my return was mostly a whirlwind of reintroducing myself to my family, moving, training for a new job, and knocking out about 10,000 to-dos.

As most of you know, I like to take pictures. With that fact in mind, I’m sure you can imagine that I literally had thousands of photos from my last trip around the world. Throw in a few hundred extra photos that I collected from other Marines on the deployment and you have one gigantic heap of pictures. It’s taken me some time to go through everything, but I finally organized everything and managed to upload them to our photo gallery. This includes everything from Harriers landing on the carrier, to earthquake damage in Haiti, to debauchery in liberty ports.

I won’t lie, there are a lot  of photos up there but I really worked hard to whittle them down to a manageable number and tried to pick the most visually interesting ones. If you care to see, check out the main album here.

In addition to organizing my unit’s photos, I also had the privilege of putting together the Det video. The vast majority of our flying was at night, which isn’t conducive to cool video footage, but we did scrounge up enough footage of day flying and lots of bombs exploding to make something worth viewing. It’s a cool look at what we did on a daily basis out there on our big, old, rusty, miserable boat. The password to view the video is “jetnoise”.

As much as I had hoped to write about my deployment while it was happening, things didn’t turn out that way. Some of that was due to my limited resources out there and some of it was because I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. The “not talking about it” part hasn’t changed, but I can sum up my experiences like this (with links to the respective photo albums):

• A day before setting sail, we learned we would make a detour to Haiti to help out with the quake relief. While there wasn’t much for a Harrier pilot to do there, I was proud to have been a part of the relief efforts. I was blown away by the level of destruction on the ground there.
• As great as it was to help out with Haiti, our extended stay there led to the cancellation of all of our scheduled port calls in the Mediterranean, including an incredible opportunity to train and fly in Israel!!! I’m just a little bitter about that.
• Our trip across the Atlantic was rather exciting, from crazy waves crashing over the bow to the ship almost running out of fuel and breaking apart. It was mostly like you see in the movies, where everything is sliding all over the place, people are getting sick left and right, and stuff is falling down from every shelf and storage bin. There is a reason most people avoid Atlantic crossings in the winter on a flat bottom boat.
• Our ship was the oldest amphibious carrier in the fleet, and it showed. Once we were through the Suez Canal, the average temperature of our rooms was in the mid to upper 90′s. The USS NASSAU was about a decade past its service life and in an extreme act of mercy, the Navy decommissioned her upon our return.
• The trip through the Suez was pretty cool. I was already a night owl on the way out, so I only got a few peeks at it, in a sleep-deprived daze.
• Our missions were pretty cool – truly the stuff out of Tom Clancy novels. I will have some great stories to share with my grandkids some day.
• Life on the ship was mostly miserable, but misery loves company and there were plenty of folks to commiserate with. We tied the all time Navy record for longest consecutive days at sea (169 days if you were curious). My only reprieve was the one night I had an emergency in my jet and had to land in Djibouti. With my one night stay there I can vouch that those Army guys are living in the lap of luxury in their camp there.
• Our first real relief was when we were granted a short trip across the equator (shellback, anyone? [pics]) to visit the Seychelles, a small resort island off the eastern coast of Africa. It was everything we had dreamed of – in that I could walk in a straight line for over 100 feet, there was functioning air conditioning, and food that one would actually choose to eat. Surprisingly the Marines were on our best behavior and the small island nation was not compelled to declare war on the United States after our visit.
• We steamed back to our little hot, sweaty, armpit of the Middle East and finished out our time with little incident. Before heading back through the Ditch, we gave all of the planes a solid scrub down (mostly to wash that armpit smell off of them).
• The trip back through the Suez was a lot better than the trip out; mostly because (1) we were heading home, (2) I was awake and coherent, and (3) because we were heading home. The air on the other side (in the Med) was literally clearer, crisper, and more fragrant than the hazy, humid, stinky mess that we left behind.
• We steamed through the Med pretty quickly for our final (and only second) port call of the deployment: Rome, Italy. This stop almost made the seven months of misery worth it. I had never been to Italy and it was everything I had ever hoped for and more. The sights, the food, the espresso, the wine, the people, were all just fantastic. If we weren’t assured that we would be heading back to our families, it would have been difficult to get back on the boat.
• The trip back across the Atlantic was a lot less eventful than the trip out. The seas and weather cooperated much better and (go figure) with 10 days left, the air conditioning started working again.
• Being a Harrier guy, I got to fly off a day before everyone else. My last flight in a Harrier was shooting off the front of a boat to fly back to cheering fans and my wonderful family. I can’t think of a better way to go out than that.

So there you have it. My 7 months of deployment in a few short bullets. The expanded version is available for the low, low cost of a cold beer.* The pictures go a long way to fill in the gaps, so take a good look if you are so inclined. It’s fun to look back on it all, but damn it is so good to be back home.

*Airfare to Florida not included.