We're just over a week away from Patriot half-ironman right now, and we're wrapping up the hard training this week. Last night, as a way to check/work on my fitness at climbing hills, I went over to the overpass by my house, where there are back to back overpasses, plus a walking ramp that taking going across these in either direction allows for various angles of climbing. They aren't long, but the walking ramp is pretty steep, and between the various slopes it gives me a good chance to work on climbing a little bit. In all I did 12 climbs, and I was so happy with how I did, I felt like this kid!
I've got a review post coming tomorrow on Generation UCAN nutrition products.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
A rare night off
With the pre-Patriot taper within sight, I took a rare night off last night. Rach and I had an invite to a screening of "Falling Skies"; a sci-fi/drama in the vein of Battlestar Galactica. We actually got an invite to the pre-screening cocktail hour. Free dinner and a free beer were a nice change of pace from dinners at home and hard workouts. Because of the Bruins game, we didn't actually stay for the screening, but were lucky enough to meet one of the shows primary stars, the lovely Moon Bloodgood, who is playing the love interest of Noah Wyle who will be playing the lead. The coolest part is that the show is set on the road between Concord and Boston, though it's not actually filmed here.
Tonight, I go back to training; a 1 mile swim at Upper Mystic and then home for a 30 minute run. Tomorrow will be an hour of hill repeats, which I am OH so looking forward too (not!) Thursday brings more running and another swim.
Tonight, I go back to training; a 1 mile swim at Upper Mystic and then home for a 30 minute run. Tomorrow will be an hour of hill repeats, which I am OH so looking forward too (not!) Thursday brings more running and another swim.
Monday, June 6, 2011
featured on a blog and battling through a long ride
I have some friends who rail against the idea of facebook and twitter, calling them time wasters and not good for much. I have long disagreed, with the argument that they allow you to connect with new people, and just as importantly reconnect with people from your past. One of those people I've reconnected with is Patrick Davis.
Following my freshman year of college, I returned home and worked at OfficeMax while taking classes at the local community college. I worked for Pat in the electronics department and he was always very kind to me, teaching me about music, art, and even led me to live the vegetarian lifestyle for 3 years until the doctors told me my body was dealing properly with that diet choice. We lost touch when I moved to Columbus, and it's amazing to see us both pick up cycling and hockey in the years between then and now.
Pat was kind enough to ask me a few questions and posted them on his well-written and photographed blog. I'm honored to be the subject of anything, especially when it's not the butt of Rachelle's jokes for once. Take a read, and make sure to look around for Patricks photos on the site. He has a real eye for it.
Saturday was our last really long training ride, planned for 55 miles with several of our teammates turned out to be a real adventure. We started with a group of 11 and somehow lost one of our most experienced riders within just a few miles. Our ride leader went back to find him, so we carried on led by a rider who knew the route but maybe didn't remember that this was supposed to be a 15 MPH ride; we went out a bit hot, averaging around 17.
Then we started climbing...
I have to tell you I was really happy with my ability to stay with the team for first 1/3rd of the ride, including some faster sections and some decent climbing. Yes, I was off the back a couple times, but I managed to catch up on the descent. Everything was going pretty well until on the backside of concord I head a loud POP! followed by the light tinkling of metal against metal. An all too familiar sound of a broken spoke.
Thankfully, I've learned a lot since the last time I broke a spoke; I dug out my multi-tool and used the spoke wrench to tighten up the wheel the best I could, and Rach and I headed to Wheelworks. A 6 mile ride back to the shop and $10 and 10 minutes later, and we were back on the road good as new. Days like that really make me love Wheelworks even more.
Pulling out of Wheelworks we were 30 miles in and needed at least 20 miles more. We decided to head up our normal route on the Minuteman to get in some relatively flat time in the saddle. As we made our way to the base of the trail there's a street crossing by a gas station. The past couple of times we've taken this route, I've tried to turn a gas station too soon and this time it cost me. As Rach called out to me that I was turning too soon, I managed to lock up my front wheel and down I went.
Lying on the pavement is something I've managed to avoid for the most part and thankfully this crash wasn't too bad. I wound up with scratches on my knee, ankle and wrist and a pretty decent scrape on my right thigh, but I was able to finish riding. Plus my new saddle worked out really well, which is a good sign for Patriot, now just 2 weeks away.
Following my freshman year of college, I returned home and worked at OfficeMax while taking classes at the local community college. I worked for Pat in the electronics department and he was always very kind to me, teaching me about music, art, and even led me to live the vegetarian lifestyle for 3 years until the doctors told me my body was dealing properly with that diet choice. We lost touch when I moved to Columbus, and it's amazing to see us both pick up cycling and hockey in the years between then and now.
Pat was kind enough to ask me a few questions and posted them on his well-written and photographed blog. I'm honored to be the subject of anything, especially when it's not the butt of Rachelle's jokes for once. Take a read, and make sure to look around for Patricks photos on the site. He has a real eye for it.
Saturday was our last really long training ride, planned for 55 miles with several of our teammates turned out to be a real adventure. We started with a group of 11 and somehow lost one of our most experienced riders within just a few miles. Our ride leader went back to find him, so we carried on led by a rider who knew the route but maybe didn't remember that this was supposed to be a 15 MPH ride; we went out a bit hot, averaging around 17.
Then we started climbing...
I have to tell you I was really happy with my ability to stay with the team for first 1/3rd of the ride, including some faster sections and some decent climbing. Yes, I was off the back a couple times, but I managed to catch up on the descent. Everything was going pretty well until on the backside of concord I head a loud POP! followed by the light tinkling of metal against metal. An all too familiar sound of a broken spoke.
Thankfully, I've learned a lot since the last time I broke a spoke; I dug out my multi-tool and used the spoke wrench to tighten up the wheel the best I could, and Rach and I headed to Wheelworks. A 6 mile ride back to the shop and $10 and 10 minutes later, and we were back on the road good as new. Days like that really make me love Wheelworks even more.
Pulling out of Wheelworks we were 30 miles in and needed at least 20 miles more. We decided to head up our normal route on the Minuteman to get in some relatively flat time in the saddle. As we made our way to the base of the trail there's a street crossing by a gas station. The past couple of times we've taken this route, I've tried to turn a gas station too soon and this time it cost me. As Rach called out to me that I was turning too soon, I managed to lock up my front wheel and down I went.
Lying on the pavement is something I've managed to avoid for the most part and thankfully this crash wasn't too bad. I wound up with scratches on my knee, ankle and wrist and a pretty decent scrape on my right thigh, but I was able to finish riding. Plus my new saddle worked out really well, which is a good sign for Patriot, now just 2 weeks away.
Notes:
- The weather was beautiful this weekend, which gave us the opportunity to swim Friday. A little over a half mile on Friday, and I'm getting more comfortable with my wetsuit.
- I didn't run on Friday because my knees hurt from Thursday, so running every day got broken pretty quickly. But I did run on Sunday.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Race Report: 2011 Chase Corporate Challenge Boston
It's been noted by a few people in the past 48 hours that I sound less than confident about my running. In my teenage years, I was not confident about most things. other than I would be a writer, and one day own a lightsabre (I'm 50% of the way there; now about that lightsabre). I grew out of a lot of that, as experience brings wisdom. I sometimes regret my lack of confidence in my youth, especially when it came to athletics. Sparky Anderson once famously said "pain don't hurt", and he's right; if I'd been less afraid of pain and some short term suffering, I might have flourished in areas I quickly dismissed.
My lack of confidence with running has been mostly a learned behavior, and it's one I need to work on breaking. Performances like last night will hopefully help me to continue to thwart that problem. It was a cool and breezy night, the opposite of last years event, and I was prepped for some suffering. I haven't been putting in a lot of distance lately, mostly pretty short runs. Nothing like a race to change all that.
I knew I couldn't run the whole thing and expect to make a good time, so I went with a 5 minute run/2 minute walk plan. This worked well until the halfway point, when I was feeling tired, so I switched to 5 minute run/3 minute walk. I followed this to precision until the last walk break, when I decided I wanted to put in everything I could, so I only walked 1 minute for the last break.
Last year I could have sworn I was faster than the 52:05 the chip timing said. I didn't have any electronics to go by, and I walked most of the race in hot, muggy conditions. Based on my experiences with hot races in the past year, I probably was closer to my official time than I thought. This year thankfully, I had my Garmin 305, and though I started it about 40 seconds early when I hit the very first timing mat, it worked very well. My official time this year was 47:35, and my Garmin was just off at 48:12, but showed the additional distance.
For a mostly flat course on a cool day, going about twice the distance I'm used to right now, I'm thrilled with the nearly 5 minute improvement over last years time. Most importantly, i wasn't the least bit tempted to just walk over to our house at the turnaround.
My lack of confidence with running has been mostly a learned behavior, and it's one I need to work on breaking. Performances like last night will hopefully help me to continue to thwart that problem. It was a cool and breezy night, the opposite of last years event, and I was prepped for some suffering. I haven't been putting in a lot of distance lately, mostly pretty short runs. Nothing like a race to change all that.
 |
| Me and my co-workers |
I knew I couldn't run the whole thing and expect to make a good time, so I went with a 5 minute run/2 minute walk plan. This worked well until the halfway point, when I was feeling tired, so I switched to 5 minute run/3 minute walk. I followed this to precision until the last walk break, when I decided I wanted to put in everything I could, so I only walked 1 minute for the last break.
Last year I could have sworn I was faster than the 52:05 the chip timing said. I didn't have any electronics to go by, and I walked most of the race in hot, muggy conditions. Based on my experiences with hot races in the past year, I probably was closer to my official time than I thought. This year thankfully, I had my Garmin 305, and though I started it about 40 seconds early when I hit the very first timing mat, it worked very well. My official time this year was 47:35, and my Garmin was just off at 48:12, but showed the additional distance.
For a mostly flat course on a cool day, going about twice the distance I'm used to right now, I'm thrilled with the nearly 5 minute improvement over last years time. Most importantly, i wasn't the least bit tempted to just walk over to our house at the turnaround.
Notes:
- This weekend is the last big bike ride before the race: 55 miles. We may go down near the course to ride even, to get an idea of what it's like.
- Read this entry on Rach's blog about how we got screwed by our gym. No more access to FitRec, a month earlier than they said we would be shut out.
- I'm now a mere $683 from finishing my fundraising. It's nice to be making such good progress.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Another "National Run Day" blog post
By now, I'm sure you're aware it's National Run Day (notice it's all in caps so as to denote how official and important this is), because everyone with a blog who didn't already have a post planned for today has a post about this today. I've actually been planning this for a couple days, so my post about National Run Day doesn't count as a last minute fill in.
You see, I've been trying to run for as long as I can remember (cue the "dreamy music and fade to sepia color memory sequence"):
- In elementary school, I was sure I would at some point discover I could use The Force or become a superhero. During recess, one of our playground attendants would carry a stopwatch to keep an eye on the time we spent playing. I used to ask/beg/make her time me running some distance from where she stood to the monkey bars and back. This is probably the last time I was ever fast.
- In Junior High, I played Tight End in football, because it was the position that involved the most running, and I was pretty tall. I was never very good mostly because I lacked confidence. I was often afraid of making mistakes, and so I wasn't in the position to succeed. Even then, I wasn't really fast enough to run with any of the fast players, and was even demoted to play with the 8th graders as a 9th grader to get me some game experience in hopes of boosting my confidence. It didn't happen.
- In High School, I figured out that maybe I didn't have to be fast, I just had to be able to stick stuff out. So I signed up for the 100 mile club. The 100 mile club was a group that got together to run 5 miles a day a few days a week until we each reached 100 miles run. I tried it 2 years, and I think the furthest I ever got was 50ish miles. At this point I realized I was neither fast nor endurant and returned to marching band believing I'd see the last of running outside of family softball and football games.
Flashing forward to 2007 (instead of sepia and dreamy music, let's go with a grainy color reel and whatever was the pop music of the time):
- Wanting to get in better shape but being nearly 400 lbs, I knew running was not where I wanted to start. Not even thinking about the 2 ten speeds I had in my garage, I saw a flyer for a 10k walking race, and 40 pounds lost later, I was still walking.
Since then I've been trying to transition from walking to running. The best I've managed was to shuffle/job my way through some 5k's/10k's. But in the end, I'm usually left feeling disappointed in my performance because it's been so hard to motivate myself to run instead of other workouts or on top of other workouts. The sad part is I know that running is where I can make the most improvement in my triathlon times, not to mention making my road races that much more enjoyable.
So now, here on National Run Day, I've already run (this morning, just a "quick" mile before work), but I've decided that if I'm ever going to do this, it needs to be an every day thing. I can't run just once every other day, or even a few times a week. I pledge to run at least a little every day, but with a goal of making a routine out of something I'm not good at until I really do become good at it.
You see, I've been trying to run for as long as I can remember (cue the "dreamy music and fade to sepia color memory sequence"):
- In elementary school, I was sure I would at some point discover I could use The Force or become a superhero. During recess, one of our playground attendants would carry a stopwatch to keep an eye on the time we spent playing. I used to ask/beg/make her time me running some distance from where she stood to the monkey bars and back. This is probably the last time I was ever fast.
- In Junior High, I played Tight End in football, because it was the position that involved the most running, and I was pretty tall. I was never very good mostly because I lacked confidence. I was often afraid of making mistakes, and so I wasn't in the position to succeed. Even then, I wasn't really fast enough to run with any of the fast players, and was even demoted to play with the 8th graders as a 9th grader to get me some game experience in hopes of boosting my confidence. It didn't happen.
- In High School, I figured out that maybe I didn't have to be fast, I just had to be able to stick stuff out. So I signed up for the 100 mile club. The 100 mile club was a group that got together to run 5 miles a day a few days a week until we each reached 100 miles run. I tried it 2 years, and I think the furthest I ever got was 50ish miles. At this point I realized I was neither fast nor endurant and returned to marching band believing I'd see the last of running outside of family softball and football games.
Flashing forward to 2007 (instead of sepia and dreamy music, let's go with a grainy color reel and whatever was the pop music of the time):
- Wanting to get in better shape but being nearly 400 lbs, I knew running was not where I wanted to start. Not even thinking about the 2 ten speeds I had in my garage, I saw a flyer for a 10k walking race, and 40 pounds lost later, I was still walking.
Since then I've been trying to transition from walking to running. The best I've managed was to shuffle/job my way through some 5k's/10k's. But in the end, I'm usually left feeling disappointed in my performance because it's been so hard to motivate myself to run instead of other workouts or on top of other workouts. The sad part is I know that running is where I can make the most improvement in my triathlon times, not to mention making my road races that much more enjoyable.
So now, here on National Run Day, I've already run (this morning, just a "quick" mile before work), but I've decided that if I'm ever going to do this, it needs to be an every day thing. I can't run just once every other day, or even a few times a week. I pledge to run at least a little every day, but with a goal of making a routine out of something I'm not good at until I really do become good at it.
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