Archive for June, 2009

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Random Question

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Why is it that women (and some men, for that matter, but not that there’s anything wrong with that) will tell you it is fine to do something and then if you do it, they get mad?  I won’t go into specifics for obvious reasons (she would get even madder), but it seems to me that it is pretty simple logic to tell someone what you want so you don’t get something you don’t want. 

For example (and this is completely hypothetical), “Honey, do you mind if I go out with the guys tonight?”  “Sure,” she replies.  So you go out, have a good time and when you get back home, you get the cold shoulder.  She may not even say something, but you can tell that something is wrong.  Then if you ask what’s wrong, you may get a “You know what’s wrong” with an evil eye, or you may even get a direct answer then such as “Why did you go out with the guys when you know I didn’t want you to.”

It seems to me in the above situation, it would have turned out much better if she had replied, “no I would rather you stay home and be with me.”  This would be especially nice if she does it with a suggestive look…

So, I want to hear from you.  What are everyone’s opinion on the matter?

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Heating Things Up

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Mountain biking is harder than I remember. 

I changed the tires on my bike (because I can’t afford two bikes) back to the all-terrain tires that were original to the bike.  I also reinstalled the rear suspension all in preparation for the off-road triathlon this Saturday. 

Once I had this completed, I decided I would like to go for a trail ride at the Anne Springs Close Greenway.  I had planned a 6-7 mile ride and then a 1-2 mile trail run to do sort of a “mountain brick”.  The only time that I could get away was during nap time, which happens to be the hottest part of the day.  If you live in the south, you know how hot it was on Saturday.  It was in the mid nineties, but with high humidity, it felt even hotter.  There was very little, if any, breeze and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky to block the sun’s heat.  The one positive was at least on the trails, the trees do a good job of shading the sun.

I realized early on that I was not used to riding on trails and have become more accustomed to the smooth surface of the asphalt.  I figured there would be some adjustment, but since I have ridden a mountain bike on these trails numerous times, I figured I would not need that much.  However, it has been almost a year since.  About a mile into it, I notice that my pace is not that much faster than my normal running pace and it worried me a bit.  I ended up doing a little over 7 miles, but it took me over an hour.  See the details here.  Compare that with my time on the bike leg of Tri the Rock Triathlon of about 50 minutes for the 16 mile ride and you can see how much slower that is.  I did get more comfortable throughout the ride, so I hope I will be okay this Saturday.  I just hope I don’t embarrass myself!

The worst thing that happened was that when I got home, just looking for some relief from the heat in the air conditioning, I noticed that it felt just as warm inside as it did outside.  I checked the thermostat and it said it was cooling and set to a temperature of 74, but the actual temperature was reading 85.  I asked my wife if she had changed it lately and she said no.  I went outside and the fan was not running, so I checked the circuit breaker.  Tripped.  So I turned it back on and went to check it again.  I could hear it running, but the fan wasn’t spinning.  I gave it a few minutes and checked again.  Tripped again.  Shit.  Luckily we still have a home buyer’s warranty that we renewed last year due to the age of the HVAC system.  I placed a claim and then called the repair company and asked if it were at all possible to get Saturday service.  They told me for an extra $50, they would come.  Okay!  The guy came out around 6:30 and it took him all of about 15 minutes to replace a capacitor that had blown, apparently due to overheating.

I took Sunday off since Jenn had to work and today is an off day.  I will swim tomorrow and Thursday mornings and run Wednesday morning.  I might do a bit of jogging on the trails on Friday, but I won’t do much.  Hopefully this will leave me prime to not suck at the bike leg too much.

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Best Week so Far

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

This week has been the most intense week I have had training wise.  That is the reason why I didn’t get a post up yesterday.  Once I got home from work, I just kind of crashed and didn’t feel like doing anything.  A quick 12 hour rest was all I needed though.

I will start with what you have missed.  I commented on the bike ride to work on Tuesday and here is the link to the stats.  The ride home was much the same, and although it was late (I had to work late) I had fun with it.  I actually passed another bicyclist, sure he was on a mountain bike and not really trying, but I still passed him!  It is also fun when a car passes me right before a turn or railroad crossing and they slow down more than I have to.  It gives me a chance to “ride” their bumper, but I have my hands on the brakes and I am always ready to swerve around them if they do something stupid.  Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn’t do that…  Anyway, here are those stats.

The next morning, I woke up early again, went to the pool and swam 700 yards.  Once again the swim is feeling comfortable, which is growing my confidence.  I went back home, showered and jumped back on the bike to work.  Much the same, nothing special there.  Here are the stats.  The ride back home Wednesday afternoon was good, but very hot.  It was about 1:30 in the afternoon and about 95 degrees with full sun.  Here are the stats.  I was a little slow, but it was hot!

I woke up early again this morning and went for a run, but I slept in about 30 minutes longer than I wanted to.  I needed the rest!  I was able to squeeze in about 2.85 miles before my wife had to leave for work, and it felt pretty good.  It was cool, but the normal SC humidity is back.  Here are the stats.

Since Sunday morning, I have ran 14.14 miles, biked 35.75 miles and swam 700 yards.  I plan to swim at least 700 yards tomorrow morning and will probably bike to work again.  Add to that another run on Saturday morning and I have greatly surpassed total training for previous weeks.  This all works to add to my confidence.  If I am going to go the distance, I need to be able to do the training.  Oh, and not counting the swim, in the last 5 days I have burned an extra 3,385 calories.  My diet hasn’t been perfect, but I will look to shed a couple of pounds when I start to taper next week for the off-road triathlon.  I will keep you posted.

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Very Early Morning

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

After a day off yesterday, apparently my body was ready to get moving.  At around 2:45 this morning, I was wide awake.  I had planned on waking up at 4:30 and then go for a run, back home to shower then bike to work.  I stayed in bed trying to get back to sleep and realized a little after 3:00 that it wasn’t going to work.  I decided I had three options: stay in bed awake, watch some TV or go ahead for the run.  I guess the inner triathlete in me said, “RUN!”  So I did.

I took my time (I had plenty after all!) going to the bathroom, getting dressed and stretching.  I leashed up Althea, said goodbye to Diego and we were off.  I had to run without the IPod this morning as I wanted to, due to some kind of glitch with it.  I think the battery is dead.  Melissa and I have debated several times over whether or not running with music or running without so you can hear the birds, your breathing, etc. is better.  I probably would have always run with music except that it is illegal in competition at triathlons.  Once I started running without, I realized there are some benefits, but I do still enjoy the music especially when all I expected to hear at 4:00 AM was the occasional car and barking dogs.

We ended up running to the Peach Stand (if you know Fort Mill, you should know where that is) and back.  Total mileage was 6.2 miles.  I did it at a steady pace of just over 10 minute miles and it felt good.

The only issues I had again related to the lack of sidewalks along Doby’s Bridge Rd.  It must have been a new moon for where there were no street lights or cars around I could not see a thing.  Add to that a car coming at me with its bright lights on and I was perfectly blinded.  I felt like that deer must feel when it encounters such a car.  Add more to that a roadway that has no shoulder whatsoever and a 4 inch drop from the asphalt to the dirt and you have me running down the road with a car coming (I got over a bit in case they weren’t paying attention) and I drop off the edge.  I rolled my left ankle a good bit, but luckily I didn’t hurt anything.  I yelled out a few choice words regarding the lack of sidewalks and I hope there were no kids awake around that area.  I need to see what it would take for the city to put some in.  Anybody have any ideas?

Here are the stats.

I got back home a little after 5:00 and just took my time cooling off and cleaning up.  I showered, went to the bathroom again and got dressed for the ride to work.

The ride in was uneventful, thankfully, and the weather was actually quite nice.  I will add more on the ride home, including the usual stats as well at a later time.

It’s too bad I have to work late tonight or this would be shaping up to be a perfect day!

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Happy Father’s Day

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

I had every reason to skip my workouts this weekend.  Yesterday, I travelled to Greenville, SC with Mia, my Dad and Melissa to visit Jenny and Chuck.  We left pretty much first thing in the morning and I let Jenn get a run in before we left.  Melissa and I had tentatively planned to run while we were in Greenville, but the temperature was to flirt with 100 degrees and it would be the hottest part of the day when we would have had time to run – nap time.  Plus, Chuck had said he wanted to get a round of disc golf in with me and after not playing for several months, I was looking forward to that.

We ended up going to play the game of disc golf since it was so hot.  It was a lot of fun and I shot 12 over and Chuck (semi-professional if you ask me) shot 6 under.  Now you may say 12 over is really bad, but I haven’t thrown a disc in 3 months and even then I usually was happy with bogey golf, or 18 over playing 18 holes.  So I was pleased with a 12 over score, especially since this is rated an “intermediate-advanced level course” and a “difficult par 54″ on the PDGA website.  We played at Century Park Disc Golf Course in Greer, SC.  I greatly enjoyed the course and would recommend it to anyone in the area.

Mia and I didn’t get back home until about 7:00, just in time to see Sadie before she went to bed.  We couldn’t get Mia to sleep until a little after 9:oo as she was wound up from the busy day.  I was too tired after all of that to do anything but sit and watch some TV.

Jenn had to work 12 hours on Sunday, so she went to bed early.  I stayed up just a little bit and watched some of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, as aired on PBS a few months ago.  I decided that I would wake up early enough to get a run in before Jenn had to leave for work at 6:00.  This meant I had to wake up at 4:45 at the latest to do that.  I wanted to run 6 miles and knew that I would need at least 1:15 to get ready and run that distance.  So I went to bed.

I woke up at about 4:50 and threw on clothes, stretched, went to the bathroom and leashed up Althea.  We told Diego goodbye and we headed out.  I decided that since there was not much traffic at 5:00 on Sunday morning that we would run down the normally busy road that has no sidewalks (seriously, come on Town of Fort Mill, get with the program and put sidewalks and bike lanes in!) and run through the town.  It seems that the majority of cars that are out this early on Sundays are police officers.  At least I could wave one down if I had a problem!

We turned around at about 5:30 because I knew I had to be back by 6:00 so Jenn could leave for work.  This cut the distance to 5 miles, but it still felt great and around mile 4 I felt the “runner’s high” but it didn’t last very long.  Those of you that have run a good bit probably know what I am talking about.  It is kind of a fuzzy feeling, but I like the feeling and I take it as my body’s way of saying, “thanks for all the exercise, now I can live a little longer!”

Here are the stats as recorded by the Forerunner GPS.

Now I get to enjoy my Father’s Day with my two girls.  I only wish that I didn’t have to work tomorrow and that Jenn could spend the day with us too.  Oh well, not everything is perfect, but it is close.

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A New Milestone Reached!

Friday, June 19th, 2009

I had another good morning today.  I woke up at about 5:00 and did the usual: bathroom, threw on clothes, grabbed my swim suit, towel and goggles and headed to the pool.

I had planned to swim 750 yards, by the same 100 yard repeat pattern that I had used on Wednesday.  I felt very good on the swim again and by the time I reached 700 yards, I wanted to keep going!  I did another 100 yards and then thought, “maybe I will try for 1000″.  Well, I did it!  1000 yards or 40 lengths of the 25 yard pool.  I was tired after, but excited that I had reached that milestone.

I rushed back home, fed the dogs and got a shower.  I threw on the bike clothes because I was going to bike to work again!  I had planned ahead more this time and left my work clothes at the office yesterday.  I took a shorter route this time and made the 9 mile trip in about 30 minutes.  I got to work, did a quick “sink shower” in the bathroom, changed clothes and I was ready for work.  I will add more on the bike home later.

The bike home was good, but mostly uneventful.  I did see another deer, but not in the same fasion as before.  It was off the side of the road.  I heard something moving through some bushes and looked over to see a deer about the same size as I had seen the first morning I biked to work.  I told it not to come into the road and kept on.  Hopefully it listened to me.

Here are the stats on the way to work and here are the stats for the way home.

On a side note, have you guys checked out this blog?  This guy is  truly inspirational.  And today, he is accepting comments on his post that will add to his workout time tomorrow.  Check it out.

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Where is your special place?

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I want to take another break from the triathlon training talk and ask everyone, “Where is your special place?”  This may sound all warm and fuzzy, but let me be more specific.  Where is the coolest most memorable place you have taken a dump?

I promise to have more random thoughts than that of a toilet related matter, but I seem to get inspired a lot in my “special” places!

My most memorable place would have to be the Statue of Liberty.  They actually have very nice facilities there (or they did when I was there 10 years ago) and I nearly missed the ferry back!

You may want to give it a few minutes before going in there...

You may want to give it a few minutes before going in there...

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Another Humid Morning

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I was able to force myself out of bed at 5:00 again this morning.  I was disappointed in this because I needed to get up no later than 4:45 to get the run in that I wanted to.  My wife had to leave the house for work at 5:55, so I needed to be back home by then in case the girls woke up.

I did my usual routine: toilet, clothes, shoes, stretch.  Then I went to see the dogs and let Diego in the house and got the leash on Althea.  This always takes longer than you would think.  After a 5 minute warm up walk, I started running at 5:31.  This meant it was going to be a shorter run than I wanted.  So I decided to try to run a fast pace.

The idea was all well and good, but then I started to think about the weather man I heard on TV while I was stretching.  “It is already warm at 71 degrees and it is much more humid than this time yesterday.  When you walk outside this morning it will be like a slap in the face.”  I thought, “shit, just what I need!” 

So I decided to do the best with what I had and I ran 2.35 miles in about 21 minutes.  That comes to a pace of 8:57/mile.  Not a bad pace, but certainly not my best.  You can see all the stats here.

I will attempt the swim at 5:30 tomorrow morning and then bike to/from work.  I am looking forward to that.  This Saturday Mia and I are traveling with my dad and Melissa to see our sister, Jenny, and her husband, Chuck.  I am super excited about this because I haven’t seen my dad in quite some time (my parents live in Dallas, TX) and it has been several weeks since I have seen Jenny and Chuck. 

Jenny is 8 months pregnant and completed her first marathon with Chuck last December (while she was pregnant by the way).  We ran in a race together with Melissa and although she was pregnant she still smoked us.  See Melissa’s blog post about that race here.  I wonder if I could beat her now?  She is the one who used to trick me into exercising with her when we were kids.  “Come on, race me!  I will give you a head start and a sticker when we finish!”  She would still beat me and I think you owe me some stickers Jenny.  It wasn’t until high school when I started running track that I could beat her at a short sprint.  By this time she was running much farther than me, but I have to hold on to something, right?  Maybe we can run a marathon (or at least the Cooper River Bridge run 10K) together next year and I can see how far I’ve come.  Melissa, Jenny how about a little sibling rivalry next year?

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Rush Hour Sucks (for drivers)

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

I was able to get my bike ride in this afternoon.  My wife was able to leave work early, which was nice since storms were in the forecast for this evening, and I took the opportunity to get a ride in. 

It started off nicely and I realized quickly that the air temperature was pleasantly cooler than what is has been recently.  I also realized early on that the air was very thick with moisture and possibly smog which made my breathing somewhat labored.  I tried to ignore it and just pedaled on.

I kept checking the Garmin to see my stats as to how far I have come, how fast my average speed is, etc. and I noticed about 6 miles in that my average speed is over 20 mph.  That was a first.  My fastest recorded average speed has been around 17 mph so I got excited.  It is always nice when you can literally see my hard work paying off.  At that point I was determined to have a good ride.

The route I chose to take took me around the town that I live in.  For about the first half of the ride I was riding the opposite way that the majority of the traffic was traveling at this time of day.  The second half is a different story.

Most of the ride took place on 4 lane roadways (no bike lanes in my area which is just stupid) so the cars had a little bit more room to dodge me.  Most of them did quite well, others I am worried did not see me at all.  I always have to think when that happens, “at least they didn’t hit me.”  Perhaps that is not the best attitude to take, but it is what keeps me going.

At one point a dog that has it’s head stuck out of a car window starts barking at me.  “SHIT!”  And then as I empty out my shorts I start to calm down.  “Only a dog, no need to freak out.” 

The rest of the ride I realized that I was going about as fast as the speed of the traffic that was very heavy at this hour.  Fortunately though, no more scary surprises so all in all it was a great workout!  Check out the stats here.  Next up I will attempt to get a run in early tomorrow morning.

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Wet Morning

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

This morning is wet.  It is raining, but also I was able to roll out of bed at 5:15 and head to the pool!  I was able to get in 700 yards of swimming, or 28 lengths of the 25 yard pool.  It was a challenging workout, but I felt very good with my form and I can tell it is improving.  I am still concerned that I feel the need to rest between laps, but I was able to rest less today.  I did 100 yard repeats with about 20 – 30 seconds rest between each.  Normally I would only do 50 yards before resting.  I am also still concerned that I won’t be as comfortable in the  open water (as opposed to a pool swim) when I go to my next three triathlons that I have scheduled. 

Next up is the Recon Off-Road Triathlon and Relay at Ann Springs Close Greenway in Fort Mill, SC.  It will be my first open water swim, but I am confident I will be able to swim the short 400 meter course.  It will also be my first off-road triathlon which consists of mountain biking and trail running instead of on paved roads.  It will be nice to run in the shade of the woods in July though!

After that, I will compete in my first international distance triathlon at the Assault on Cherokee at Kings Mountain State Park near Gaffney, SC.  It will be a 1300 meter swim, 26 mile bike ride and a 10K run.  This will be my biggest triathlon event of the year.  It will certainly test out how well my training efforts have paid off.

Then I will compete in the Cane Creek Triathlon in Waxhaw, NC.  It is another sprint distance triathlon, but it looks to be a nice event and it is close to home.  My brother in law, Alex, will also be competing, so that will be fun as well.

My hope is that these three events, combined with the marathon in December, will give me the motivation to continue my training and give me the confidence to do a few international distance triathlons in the spring and early summer of next year and shoot for completing a half iron distance triathlon in the fall.

Next up training wise is a bike ride this evening if the weather holds out as they are calling for storms again today and then a run in the morning.  I will try to get the time on Friday morning to swim and then bike to work.

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