Monthly Archives: February 2015

Anna sings at the 2015 NATS Kansas City event

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Anna has been taking voice lessons for the past few years from Catherine Boone, a voice teacher that attends our church. Catherine also teaches a lot of the high school singers up at Anna’s high school.  As a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, she is able to enter her students in the regional auditions where the students can sing for judges.

This was the first year that Anna participated in NATS; she’s sung in other events, but never in NATS. The other events just had her singing her piece in front of a couple judges – nothing unusual. However, this time she specifically sang show pieces and lyrical pieces for different judges. Linda, as usual, accompanied. Enjoy the following four pieces that Anna sang.

Till There Was You (Music Man) by Meredith Wilson

I Have Confidence (The Sound of Music) by Richard Rodgers

O Come, O Come, My Dearest by Thomas Arne

Nel cor piú non mi sento by Giovanni Paisiello

My 2015 Tour of Sufferlandria

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When it gets cold outside, we are often forced to ride our bikes in the basement on a trainer. Linda and I both have our bike hooked up to a CycleOps Magneto trainer.  It can be very boring, but we can at least watch TV while riding our bike. The thing I like least about riding on the trainer is that I generally don’t get as much of a workout when I’m just mindlessly spinning the pedals and watching TV. In fact, I rarely even break a sweat.

Enter The Sufferfest.

 

These are a series of biking videos that can be watched while riding hard on the trainer. The workouts are generally a series of high-intensity interval training type workouts. The best way to describe it is “doing P90X on the bike”.  Because these workouts are usually a bit exhausting, I have only intermittently utilized the videos over the past 3 years.

Sufferlandria is the mythical country from which each Sufferfest rider pretends they are citizens. For the 3rd straight year, the “Tour of Sufferlandria” (“The Greatest Grand Tour of a Mythical Nation in the Whole Wide World”) was offered. This is a 9-day event utilizing almost all of the cycling videos available. It raises money for the Davis Phinney Foundation. Davis Phinney is a former pro cyclist who now has Parkinson’s disease; his foundation raises money for research and helping those with Parkinson’s disease.

After initially being scared about trying to do 9 back-to-back days of Sufferfest videos, I made the decision to participate this year. Over the 9 days, I rode just over 13 hours and travelled a distance of 219 miles (without ever moving an inch in the basement).  This was a fun event to do and I will certainly do it again next year.Here you will find the stages, duration, miles travelled, and also calories burned.

Stage 1, Sat, 24 Jan: Elements of Style + The Long Scream
Duration: 1hr 10mins
Distance: 19.35 miles  (784 calories)

Stage 2, Sun, 25 Jan: Blender
Duration: 1hr 40mins
Distance: 26.03 miles (1105 calories)Stage 3: Mon, 26 Jan: Fight Club
Duration: 1hr
Distance: 16.97 miles (635 calories)

Stage 4: Tue, 27 Jan: Nine Hammers
Duration: 1hr
Distance: 17.25 miles (785 calories)

Stage 5: Wed, 28 Jan: Angels
Duration: 1hr
Distance: 16.04 miles (720 calories)

Stage 6: Thu, 29 Jan: Local Hero
Duration: 1hr 25mins
Distance: 23.72 miles (1100 calories)

Stage 7: Fri, 30 Jan: The Rookie
Duration: 1hr
Distance: 15.31 miles (710 calories)

Stage 8: Sat, 31 Jan: Revolver + Violator + Half is Easy (Dame Alissa Memorial Stage)
Duration: 2hrs 25mins
Distance: 39.36 miles (1825 calories)

“Our youngest Knight of Sufferlandria, Dame Alissa Schubert, was killed earlier this year when she was hit by a truck while out cycling. Revolver was her favourite video. We dedicate this stage, the hardest stage ever to feature in the ToS, in her memory. We also dedicate it to her parents who also became Knights of Sufferlandria with Alissa. A true Sufferlandrian’s stage. Crush it.”

Stage 9: Sun, 1 Feb: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time
Duration: 2hrs
Distance: 30.36 miles (1352 calories)

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