DBAP

I read other people's training blogs these days, and while there are some I like (Red Fox, Ben) for their attention to detail in training and racing, there are others (not to be named) that are pretty gay.

Here's a quick newsflash:

Training hurts.

So does racing. It's like the old adage says "it's supposed to be hard - if it was easy everyone would do it" or maybe my other favorite, "if it doesn't hurt, you're not doing it right."

That second one was in reference to banging. But really, your training and my training and her training and his training - they're no different. We all go through the same things. Anguish, fatigue, laziness, excitement, sometimes even depression. One can only hope that there is some benefit to the cost, some reward to the risk. I just want to know that what I'm doing is going to make sense, even if just to me, in the end.

Which is why I try not to be gay about stuff. Don't make excuses when things aren't going well, don't complain about training. Everyone I know is training for something, and I get annoyed when I hear them complain, so I don't want to be a whiny little baby.

I picked this excerpt up from a blog I occasionally read. The guy appears to be a fairly legit, quick dude. He is also not a rookie, so my expectations are higher for him to be "in the know." I had to laugh when I read it, so here are my thoughts as I was reading it (in red).

I rode 3 hours on sat, even though I was sick. (then don't ride if you're sick, otherwise stop complaining) It was close to my record pace - which was nice since I wasn't going that hard and I thought it would be fun to do 3 hours on 2 gels. (just ride. and 2 gels in 3 hours? try eating nothing for 5 hours, then you'd have my Sunday ride. not trying to be more hardcore, just am)

I survived but barely and I was sort of hungry but I wanted to see how many calories I could put into my drink and how few gels I'd need. I probably need to race with 3-4 gels on the bike and 2 bottles of water/drink.

In the 2nd half of the ride my butt hurt. Like I had a splinter in it. But not IN my rear, but sort of where you sit which isn't really anywhere you can ask someone about. (how long have you been riding for? I presume at least a couple of years. it's a saddle sore, nimrod, and that area is called your taint, use its proper name)

So I finished with a few grimaces and then got home and took a shower.

But of course I had to see what was hurting. (saddle sore)

Without posting any pictures, I sort of had to go all yoga style in the bathroom trying too see where it hurt - which is impossible without smoke or mirrors. (it's a saddle sore! just squeeze the general vicinity, clean it out and keep going!)

But enough deep breathing I was able to see what hurt and it was a saddle sore and it hurt and it was angry.

Saddle sores happen, ask my cousin, I let her know when I have them. It means you haven't ridden in a while, and now you're trying to ride a lot. It's a good thing. A badge of honor.

The beautiful thing about training is that only you are accountable for what you do, or for what you don't do. Here are a couple of ideas to get you going:

1) If you have a plan, stick to it. Unless your body is telling you otherwise, then be willing to adapt from time to time. Ask yourself: "would an idiot do this?" And if the answer is yes, don't do that thing.

2) If you don't have a plan, get one. Even if you just scribble some notes down on a piece of paper. Have an idea of where you're going, and how you want to get there. You don't necessarily need a coach, but you've got to have a clue.

3) Don't smoke. It's bad for you.

4) Have some goals. No matter how big or small, they'll help you have an idea of where you want to go.

5) It's your fault. Seriously, it is. If you go out hard on a Saturday night, and don't do anything Sunday - that's your fault. I didn't make you drink that goldfish.

6) Make deposits early and often. Not those kind of deposits, but deposits into the bank. You know, the training bank. Get it in as early as you can. That way if life interferes later in the day, you've already done something. And even if life does get in the way, find a way to do something - even if it's not much.

Balanced

Balance - as a multisport athlete, it's the one thing most of us strive for, but few of us are able to actually pin down. Case in point:

Run too many miles one week, too tired to ride. Ride too many miles, no time or energy to get in solid runs. Try and put too much in one day, knock yourself out for the next couple.

I try and remember this as I go about my seemingly haphazard training, but winter is really tough to perform tasks with consistency. For instance, the beginning of this week was cold and we had a fair bit of snow. By Friday it was over 70. Armed with this information by midweek, I was able to plan the weekend to be big. Not super ambitious, but definitely not easy.

21 hours

Swim: 12,200m
Bike: 170+ miles
Run: 51 miles

I'm pretty pleased with the week's results. 3 solid swims, each session at least 4000m with Friday's extended swim of 3200m going really well. Felt comfortable, negative split each 1000, and only fatigued a little towards the end.

Runs were good - with 3 runs over 12, including 12 on Friday (right before my evening swim) at Patapsco with Kris and Justin. At the end of our run we hit Gun Road and I felt very good, running 6:51 (previous best 7:08) for the uphill mile.

My weekend plans were centered around riding, but I had a desire to run enough to make a 65 mile run week. Those plans were put on hold after my 90+ mile ride of death on Saturday. I rolled out of the house at 7:30 for the 20ish miles up to the Saturday morning ride at TriSpeed. It was comfortably cool out, but was getting warmer. I made it up to Timonium, where I met Stanford and Zero, and a small but competent group of riders made their way out. I felt good for an hour, but then they ratcheted up the pace to beyond what I was comfortable riding at for 6 hours. I wouldn't classify myself as "dead" but rather, "life support" or "coma" or any combination of the words shredded, worked, punched out.

We made it back to TriSpeed after what seemed like an eternity (and it was only 43 miles from the store) and I still had, at minimum, 20 miles to go. I was aided by having a predominantly downhill ride home, but it was into the wind and let's be honest, net downhill still means you have to go up a few. I made it to the Falls Road Running Store and took the opportunity to grab some water and ate a few of Pete's Odwalla bars. That perked me right up and I felt better again - so when I got back into town I rode a few laps in Patterson Park to crank the ride over 90. I got a little color, and I was pretty beat by the time I finally crawled in the door.

I was not going to run then, just didn't seem to be prudent. Sometimes you have to think "is this going to help or hurt me" and I think had I run, I probably wouldn't have gotten out to ride on Sunday.

A moderately late night on Saturday (due in part to the time change) meant I needed to sleep in a little before I could ride. Plus it was dark at 7:30 I think so I wasn't going out. Unfortunately I waited until 11:15 to ride, and I wanted to be back by 4 for the UNC-Duke game. My legs felt better than yesterday, but my taint hurt pretty bad. The temp was good though, and there was no sun to speak of so it was comfortable. I made my way out Route 40 to Edgewood, and then turned up Mountain Rd to Route 1 into Bel Air. I descended into Rocks State Park and then put in an effort climbing out of it, and rolled along that terrible gravity-sucking road for like 16 miles back into Baldwin and Loch Raven Park.

I made it home okay but I was definitely tired, what I thought was a 75 mile ride turned into 82, so the two day total was pretty big. 11 hours on the bike in 2 days accounted for over half my week's hours. My bike also was riding like garbage, I don't know what was up - it was creaking a lot when I was out of the saddle. Maybe it's time to clean it.

Another lesson from this week is to not eat Powerbar Protein bars while riding. Protein is a terrible source of energy, as I've found out, because you can't access it quickly. I knew this, just didn't have anything else to take with me. Not to mention it's chocolate, so it melts. Don't bring things that can melt easily on your rides when it's warm out!

I was glad I got out to ride though, because a lot of times I'm an all-or-nothing rider. Since I had no excuse NOT to ride a lot this weekend, I had to do it. If I didn't plan on riding long, I'm not the type of person to just go out for 2 hours. I don't even know where you can really ride for just 2 hours around here anyway, other than my crappy Gunpowder loop.

So then to cap my week, I ran last night. I love running at night around Baltimore. As potentially dangerous as I'm sure running in any city after dark can be, I have come to enjoy my evening jogs around the Harbor. So much neon it's crazy. Last night was cool and windy, and I ran up to Fed Hill Park. Definitely the best view of Baltimore. I sat and contemplated for a minute before continuing on my way through the Harbor. 10:30 at night and the Harbor is jam packed. On a Sunday. Couldn't figure it out. I slowly crawled through Fells and then onto Boston and through the Square - which also was surprisingly bumping for a Sunday night. I ran crazy slow, but didn't care as I just need to shake the legs out.

Hoping for a good week this week, and now I've got to readjust to running in daylight during our evening runs.

In Like a Lion

At the beginning of last week I had ambitions of running somewhere between 60 and 70 miles, with a 20-21 mile run on Saturday at home in New Jersey. I had heard the weather for Thursday and Friday was supposed to be decent, and I expected some decent riding.

Well, none of that happened, and more frustrating is how wrecked my body feels.

Following the 10 miler last weekend I was feeling great. Monday's run was easy, and then I hopped into the BrenJunGram workout on Tuesday, which was the week's highlight. Wednesday and Thursday I was too beat up to run, so I just hit the pool. Too miserable still to ride outside.

Friday came and my plan was to run about 12 miles when I got back to New Jersey. I stopped on the way home at Manasquan Reservoir, a 5ish mile cinder loop around a big body of water. I haven't run here in a few years and my return was not kind to me. Granted I had just been in a car for 2.5 hours, but there was no way I had run a 7:17 first mile. I picked it up marginally and was running 7:00, and then just a little under. It felt way too hard.

On the second lap I was still working way harder to run 6:46s than I should have. I didn't get it. To make sure I wasn't crazy, when I got back to the start again (now after 10 miles) I went after it for a mile. The effort was harder than Tuesday's run, and it only yielded a 6:16. Not possible. At worst it should have been 5:50. I mean, I was absolutely tearing along the trail.

So the end result is that I don't believe their mile markers, but whatever. If I ran that slow then I just suck.

Saturday's plan to run long was stymied by a) how incredibly, brutally cold and windy it was and b) how bad I felt. Instead, I just ran an unbelievably slow 7.5 miles at Hartshorne, my favorite park and site of my August 1, 2003 ankle breakage. After the run my dad and I headed up to the Prudential Center to watch Seton Hall take on incumbent #1 Pitt. Unfortunately for The Hall, Pitt showed that it's a contender for a National Championship.

On to Sunday. I realized upon my arrival in NJ that the E Murray Todd Half Marathon was on Sunday. This was the first half marathon I ever participated in. It was also the first time I had to stop during a race to take a dump. But it would not be the last. I thought hmm, maybe I'll jump in and try and use it as a solid long run, starting around 6:20 and working down to the low 6:00 range. That is, only if it wasn't snowing.

And guess what - it was snowing. I didn't want to run in that, since I had forgotten to bring pants or tights. So I didn't run. Instead I spent a few hours at home with the family, and then drove back to Baltimore to watch 10 minutes worth of track spread over 2 hours. I still hadn't run. Finally went running at 11:30pm in the snow. It was obnoxious but I didn't care. All I care about is how ER will finally come to an end...

Week Totals:

swim - 8000m
bike - 0
run - 44 miles (lowest in 2 months)

FAT Tuesday

Note: I normally do not do any sort of hard running. Ever, if I can avoid it (outside of races), but usually I wait until the weather becomes more to my liking, and even then I'm real careful about it. I certainly don't fear it, I just tend to race more than most, do long races and prefer to go into them fit rather than fast.

Two years ago I employed this strategy and ran a decent time at the Shamrock 5k in March. Last year I did the same thing, and ran even faster. It's pretty sweet. In fairness, I do let the races act as hard running, and last year I did two indoor meets consisting of the mile-2mile double.

This year my training has been going well. I haven't taken a day off since December 1st, and there haven't been any days that I'm absolutely dead tired. I've had a couple of days where I didn't feel like doing anything, but thanks to my planned group runs throughout the week, I can usually avoid the temptation. So I've been running more days per week and more miles per run, and feeling good about that.

But I had a little itch to do a workout tonight with the trio of Brennan, Arjun and Ben, otherwise known as BrenJunGram. Their workouts have been daunting lately; a lot of 2 mile repeats and up. I haven't done any extended efforts like that in a while. The most I usually do is 3x15min or 3x2mi every so often in the summer on grass. The workout tonight: 2x3mile w/3min recovery, then a 2mile. Yikes. 8 miles of hard running, just two days after Club Challenge.

I felt surprisingly good after the race, but last night I was a little tired and today I was sore. I got down to Fed Hill a little late and only had about 8 minutes to warm up, during which time I regretted my decision to join them for this workout. After a quick hostage release in the Harbor, we got going.

Their plan was to run high 5:30s for the first mile, and I figured I would try and hang on for as long as I could and if I couldn't make it through the whole workout that would be okay. First mile felt quick, but only upon confirmation of a 5:24 did we realize it was way too quick. Definitely for me, maybe not so much for the other guys. Either way, I slowed down a little and came through the 3 miles in 17:05. Shoot, that probably would have worked out to be my 5k PR from high school.

A little under 3 minutes later for me we got going again, this time into a slight headwind. I was determined to go out slower, hopefully 5:45ish, and just stay even. For the most part I accomplished that, hitting the mile in 5:40, but the 2nd mile is a little tough with some road obstacles slowing you down - so I came through that 3 mile in 17:26. Considering I was 16 seconds slower on the first mile, I was cool with that.

Now my stomach was feeling pretty bad, and I still had two miles to go. I was hoping to be able to hang with Ben and Arjun (Brennan had abandoned due to stomach ailment) for at least a mile, no matter the pace, and then play it by ear. They ripped into the interval and I had to slow down. I wound up running an even split 11:36, so all told it was a good workout and I averaged somewhere around 5:45 for the 8 miles. If by September I could hold that pace at Philly Distance Run, I'd be real psyched.

The workout definitely took its toll on my legs, and I'm going to take it easy until the weekend when I'm hoping to get in two solid runs while I'm in NJ. For now, I'm pleased I made it through a workout on a chilly evening around the Harbor. Of course the weather over the next few days is supposed to be much nicer, but whatever.

THEN it was party time. Mardi Gras clearly doesn't hold the same weight in Baltimore that it does in other parts of the country, but I was determined to make it out for some Fat Tuesday celebrating. I talked a few people into going out with me, so the BrenJunGram trio did in fact make it out as did Luna and Leighanne, and we hit Kooper's in Fells. They actually had a big banner out front and had some Mardi Gras specials, which was cool. Now that it's over, I guess it's onto 40 days of being good.

Club Challenge 2009

First and foremost, I have to acknowledge the Falls Road Racing Team that this weekend earned its first overall team title at the RRCA MD 10 Mile Club Championships since 2002!

It was a huge accomplishment, and a very proud moment, for our team.

It's actually the event I take most seriously in my year. Ever since the first year I ran it, in 2006, I've been hooked, and have made it my mission - nay, obsession - to win the team title.

The 10 mile race takes place every February in the challenging neighborhoods of Columbia. I say challenging because for those of you familiar with Columbia know that it's hilly. That might be an understatement. You won't run a hillier route for 10 miles anywhere around here (evidenced by our love for flat 10M races - Cherry Blossom, Broad Street and Army). All of the local clubs toe the line, and for being such a difficult, long, winter race, it draws a large crowd (over 500 this year). It also draws one of the most competitive fields of any race I've done.

The real reason for doing this race is simple: bragging rights.

In years past, the scoring was based on the highest number of people from the smallest team. So say there are 5 teams entered and 4 of the teams have 30 guys and 15 girls, but one team has 20 guys and 10 girls. All teams would score 20 for men and 10 for women. There seem to be some years where only 3 girls have scored. Now the scoring is simplified: 12 guys, 4 girls (despite complaints by some people I know to score more girls, it remained at 4).

Normally Howard County Striders (hosts of the race) come out guns blazing and have a stranglehold on this race. I've seen them sweep the men's, women's and overall team titles and do it in commanding fashion. The first year I did the race, in 2006, despite our small numbers, we weren't too far back in the standings. I, of course, ran a forgettable 1:04:10. Even though I had just started racing again, I remember how terrible I felt. I felt extended from the gun, and it was really, really cold. I completely fell apart in the second half of the race, and was miserable afterwards. I ran with Jake and Ryan Schmidt until they took off. Spider won the race that year and Chris Nowakowski had taken 2nd, so Falls Road went 1-2, but it was no match for the Striders' offensive.

The following year, 2007, I was actually excited for the race. We had a solid team and a bunch of us were running pretty well at that point. Then the weather gods reared their ugly heads, and the Striders canceled the race as a precaution due to impending snowstorm. For the record, it didn't start snowing until 11am.

Onto 2008. We've got the biggest squad Falls Road has ever assembled, and we liked our chances. It was cold again. Kip managed to pick up 2nd place overall (1st in team scoring), but HoCo put 6 in the top 10 and just outmanned us. I wound up improving almost 5 minutes to a 59:25, which was nice for me, but that was our 5th scorer - and you're not going to get anywhere with that being the 5th person.

I don't care about my personal performance at this race, as long as it's not detrimental to the team if it's bad. And if I do well - great, as long as I ran the best I could. Every runner counts.

Usually beginning in January I have the task of putting together a squadron for the race. It involves prodding, bargaining, sometimes even begging. For the most part, this year wasn't that bad. Everyone has been running really well, but as always I felt like we weren't going into the race fully loaded - there are always a few people you'd like to have out there that were just not going to be.

Fortunately, Kyle led the way, taking 1st overall, and despite an expected strong showing from Howard County, Ben, Brennan, Arjun, Ed, Justin and Rodney all put in better than expected performances and helped balance our attack.

In the men's team competition we were still not able to take the top spot, losing to Howard County by over 100 points. That meant our women really had to run strong to help get the overall. On the women's side, Falls Road was again 2nd, but this time to Westminster. They handily outpaced HoCo Women. Then the announcement for overall team came down, and when they said Howard County picked up second, that left only one spot for us - first. A sigh of relief was about all I could muster before running up to receive our award.

As far as my own personal performance - 27th place at 58:55 - I was pretty psyched. Going into the race with two subpar performances this year (Miami and USATF XC) I didn't know what to expect. I've been running more miles this year, but not doing anything that remotely resembles hard running. The only time I have been running "hard" is when I run uphill. To record a 30 second improvement over last year is great. Weather was pretty good, definitely the warmest I've ever seen at CC, and I actually felt comfortable the whole race - runningwise. Taking a dump-wise, I actually had to STOP for 5 seconds around mile 8 to squeeze back the hostages that were attempting to escape. I also felt like my left big toenail was ripping off, which it kind of was, and is black and blue today. These didn't amount to much time, but a little discomfort towards the end. I was really close to getting Chuck Powell today, and without those little hiccups I know I would have. There's always next year.

Speaking of next year, at least we have a reason to go back - 1) Defend our title and 2) Attempt the sweep.

I won't mention the people that let the team down this weekend, but hopefully it doesn't happen again next year. We ended up missing a bunch of people and to do what we did with such a small team is awesome.

The race capped off a decent week with some highlights, including 3 4000m days in the pool and 54 miles of running. It was the first week where that distance didn't faze me. Great sign heading into 7 weeks to go before Boston. I want to hit a few weeks at or around 70 and then start to throw in some mixed efforts. I didn't get on my bike at all this week, but I needed to watch out for my knee a little bit after it was hurting a little.

The most exciting day of my week was Friday, when I ran 12 miles at Patapsco with The Kris, ending on a 7:08 trip up Gun Rd. This is the fastest I've run up the road and while it doesn't match what Godsey used to do, it was a good way to end a run. I then headed to the pool and swam a 3000m straight swim - the longest I've ever done by 500m - and was swimming pretty fast (for me, not OJ). So that was promising. My goal this year is to be stronger and fitter going into race season, and let the early races help with the sharpness.

This week I'm psyched because I'm going to the TERPS game vs Duke on Wednesday, and heading back to NJ this weekend to go see Seton Hall take on soon-to-be #1 Pitt on Saturday night. I think the Terps won this weekend over UNC because they wore yellow; in a similar fashion Falls Road donned the red singlets of the past on Sunday and won. Hmm...

Also interesting to me is to peruse archived results from Club Challenge. You see a lot of the same names, people who have been staples of the MD running community for years, and a lot of has-beens that no longer seem to run. There were a lot of triathletes a few years back, including one-time runnerup at Hawaii IM, Desiree Ficker. Then there are a bunch of people who raced for Falls Road once, and still do for other races - just not CC. That's annoying. It also appears that we only began our presence in 2002, around the time Jim was transitioning as owner, and went by the "Baltimore Running Coalition." I kind of like it, maybe we should go back to that!

What's Your Motto?

We all have little mantras and euphemisms we use in daily life and training...here are a few of my favorites, some I've come up with over the years and some courtesy of others:

DBAP

It's exactly what you think it is. Don't be a pussy. I came up with this one my junior year of college (2002). When you think of being one, stop doing that thing and man up. Sometimes, I'll admit, this is fairly difficult. It's in those exact moments that you can establish yourself as a man.

Get tough, asshole

This little gem is from OJ and his college days. Sometimes it's as simple as that - get tough. Asshole.

Diamonds in the haystack

The jury is still out on what this really means, but it sounds pretty sweet. Credit goes to Ben for this one. We think it had something to do with diamond in the rough + needle in the haystack, which I suppose would mean a difficult-to-find, unpolished athlete or something.

Hay in the barn

Another one of Ben's favorites, although I don't think it can be credited to him ultimately as it's a common saying. Again, not being from the midwest I have no idea what this fascination with hay is, but the idea is that you put hay in the barn and then later you're able to take it out - similar to my next one. Hay: it's not just for horses anymore.

Money in the bank

I tend to get made fun of for the way I race and think about racing - which is to go out fast and suffer at the end. Alright, so I've been racing that way forever and I like that style. It suits me. I look at it like I'm putting money in the bank by going out hard. If I go out slow, I'm not going to speed up along the way. If I go out fast, I've accrued some time, and therefore can slow down a little bit and still reach my goal. Now I'm starting to use it more to define training volume, similar to hay in the barn. Gotta deposit money now so you can take it out later!

This week I've been a little tired and somewhat under the weather. I haven't taken a day off since I started training again December 1st, so getting on near 3 months. But I'm doing okay. Keeping an eye on a building situation in my left knee, which has felt a little weird since Sunday's ride in Frederick. So this week I'm cutting out the doubles and trying to actively recover as best I can.

A few things about my outlook on this year:

• A little bit everyday goes a long way. I'm trying to make sure I get in something every day. You don't need to go out and kill it when you have a day off from work or because you feel like you're out of shape. That will take more out of you down the road and you'll wind up having to take a couple days off after a hard effort like that, or risk not recovering fully before your next real training session.
• Don't kill yourself. While I want to make sure I don't take a lot of time off, it's more important than anything to listen to your body. If you're not feeling it, don't push it. It's going to be a long year this year and you'll do yourself no good by crushing it now.
• You can race on speedwork, but won't get far without fitness. This is huge. All too often people are concerned with pace and distance. I see so many people using unimportant units of measure. If you don't have a solid base under your legs, you're just risking injury and burnout. Of my friends who have done Ironmans, I haven't seen one average under 7min per mile in the marathon yet. Not that it's not important to be faster than that, but you also have to get used to running that pace. Of course, I mean running that pace after a long bike ride. It's about time and effort, not speed and distance.

I'll share a few of my other tidbits that come from my phallus of knowledge over the weeks and months to come.

Flipper: King of the Sea

"But I knew him as James, the [expletive deleted] dolphin..."

I just got back from the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which I haven't visited since I was a kid. It was pretty sweet, and the dolphin show was a cool way to end the day. Except for the chick that made out with the dolphin. That was just weird.

Last week turned out to be my highest volume week in a long time at 21.5 hours, and as I look back on it, it seems pretty meager. We lucked out with 60+ degree temperatures midweek, which baited me into believing I could rock a 30 hour week with 350 miles on the bike. Here's how that turned out:

Monday: Easy 6 mile run, Fed Hill Runners. In college I used to only swim on Mondays as a recovery day, but now I've got to be at Runners so I try and make it pretty easy.

Tuesday: 50 mile ride, my Loch Raven loop. Warm temps, felt pretty decent.

Wednesday: 60 mile ride, my Hunt Valley loop. Even warmer, a little bit windier, and I was already pretty tired. Then I met up with the guys for our Wednesday evening 12 mile run, so it was a big day.

Thursday: Biggest day of the week. It was quasi warm but SUPER windy, and I knew a road ride was going to be challenging. I opted instead to ride in the confines of Patterson Park. I have a good 2 mile figure-8 that I do, and planned on doing it 15 times before going inside and riding 2 more hours on the rollers. Well, the wind was so strong that I was riding dog-slow, and then a few times the crosswinds blew me into the grass and almost into some trees. I headed back in after 14 laps and then rode the rollers for 95 minutes. My taint could take anymore of it. I then ran an easy 4 mile brick after the ride, and earlier in the day had swam 4500m - my longest workout of the year. It was a seriously long day and I was wrecked.

Friday: Plan was to ride LONG, but when I woke up and it was cold and windy at 8am, I scrapped that idea. Instead I opted to do nothing. Actually I ran at Patapsco in the afternoon for the slowest 12 mile run I've done in a long time. I stopped a few times to contemplate why I was continuing to run, only starting again when I remembered it was getting colder and darker, and I was still a few miles from the car.

Saturday: I met up with Ben, Brennan and Arjun at the NCR Trail for a medium long run of 13 miles (they were all doing more + some kind of workout). I hate running there and whatever, I got through it.

Sunday: After about 4 hours of sleep I woke up at 7 to go out to Frederick to ride. Frederick is tough because it doesn't care what kind of shape you're in, it's going to beat you somehow. We are rarely treated to fair weather when we're out there, and while the temperature wasn't freezing and it was sunny, the wind was nuts. I was riding pretty well up the hills, but the first two are brutal and really take a lot out of you. My back was very tight and my legs were tightening in preparatory anxiety of the climbs. I finally hit my stride on the back half, when I managed to climb South Mountain the big ring. That was pretty sweet. We made it back and were pleased with our effort out there for the day.

So the week wound up looking like this:

Swim - 4500m
Bike - 230 miles
Run - 47 miles

Certainly not a great swim week, but I only had so much energy. I can't believe last Memorial Day I knocked out 260 miles in 3 consecutive days. I've got a long way to go before I'll be in that shape, but this was a good week to get ready for down the road.

Washing and Wondering

Actually, I haven't taken a shower today. Nor have I shaven my sweet new "Recession Beard." That's what I'm going to call it after reading this article today.

I then read this little gem about karaoke rage. I have actually experienced this before, so I know what they're talking about. If I were a serial killer, I think I'd like to be known as the "Karaoke Killer" or "Microphone Murderer" or something.

Then I read this one about parents joining Facebook and requesting friendship from their children. My mom recently joined and I avoided accepting her request for a while, but figured whatever.

In between all this worthless Interweb reading and getting out on my bike, I contemplated my career search and wondered, what the heck am I going to do?

The first option is to stay in some kind of sales position. I would really only do this for the right company/product. Of course there are millions of people looking for jobs right now, many of whom have pretty sick resumes, so beggars can't be choosers.

Second option is for a career change. But I'm not qualified to do shit. I have no real background in anything, and no degree for anything specific. My halfway completed Journalism degree doesn't count for much, nor does my almost minor in economics. And I've been out of school for so long any courses I've taken have emptied themselves from the vault.

I don't want to go back to school, but I'm stuck without a lot of options. I'm not even qualified for half the government jobs I saw online.

I need some guidance, like a life advisor. Maybe I can be one of those.

Lessons Earned

It was August 1, 2003, just a few months after graduating Maryland. My intentions were to basically chill out for the summer, train hard, see how well I could do in some triathlons, before seeking truly gainful employment. Then in one fell swoop on a Friday morning at Hartshorne, I destroyed my ankle and running has never been the same.

But that's not really the point here, the point is that I didn't have health insurance at the time, and I had to scramble to get signed up for COBRA so I didn't have to pay out-of-pocket for what amounted to $15,000 of x-rays, MRIs, electronic bone stimulators, physical therapy, etc.

This past Saturday at the USATF Cross Country National Championships, I was sure I had done it again. On the 2nd of 6 laps I kicked my left ankle with my right foot as I slip-slided down the hill on the back half of the course. It was pretty swollen when I finished, and I was really having trouble just walking around on it the rest of the day. And once again I don't have health insurance (that ran out a week or so ago) so my only thought was "shit, I don't feel like seeing a doctor or getting an x-ray."

It doesn't feel a whole lot better even two days later, but I doubt it's really bad. It feels like the ankle is probably sprained, which isn't a big deal - but across the top of my foot it feels like there could be a ligament or two damaged. That would be annoying.

Anyway I'll worry about that later. The event on Saturday was a lot of fun, although the race itself wasn't as fun as last year in San Diego. The SD course was certainly more scenic, and despite being sick and partially hungover, I ran decent. Saturday was a different story. The course was much more difficult, but I have been feeling like I'm in decent shape and thought I could run alright. My plan was to go out slow and try and build through the race. Normally I'm one for taking off, trying to put some money in the bank and fading towards the end. This time I'd actually done what I intended to do - probably even going a little too slow. The first 2k came and I was feeling pretty good.

A kilometer later is where I knocked my ankle, and while I don't think it had too much affect on my race, it certainly didn't help. It's also really hard to get pumped up for a race in which you are clearly outgunned, and going to get stomped. So I slowed down gradually and by the end was barely above a jog. Meb flew past me around his 9k (my 7k) which is where I got passed last year, so it goes to show you how much harder this course is (since I was also running slower).

Some of my friends did pretty well, I was impressed with the performance of the Red Fox, who really had a great race, and their Georgetown team took home the team title. Even some of the pre-race favorites had tough days, it was in the mid to high 50s for temperature and the course was just sloppy. But anytime you throw a few Olympians into a race it's going to be a good time.

The post-race party was pretty fun - and after the party the Saucony troop of Julia Rudd, Brian Mahoney and Nate Jenkins, and myself and Kootman had dinner at the Rio Grande. Then the four dudes rolled down to Bethesda to the abode of some GRCers and enjoyed a little after-after party. Nate, a 2:14 marathoner, is ridiculous.

The next morning a few of us ran from Silver Spring for our long run. Joining us were Josh Glaab (23rd at the race) and Julia. I was surprised I could walk, let alone run, but I guess that was a fairly good sign. We ran down the Georgetown Branch Trail to Bethesda, then took Connecticut Ave into DC. We blew up some Subway bathroom and then hopped down into Rock Creek Park. While negotiating the steep, narrow, muddy downhill into the park, I definitely ate it and nearly smashed weiner-first into a rock.

We then took the trail along Beach Dr up to Military Rd/16th Street and then back to where we started. I did alright, but the last 2-3 miles were pretty painful for my foot. All in all it was probably about 15 miles, which was a little less than I hoped to do but better than not running at all. It was a really nice day, felt more like April than February. I haven't run down this way in a real long time, and I haven't ridden down there in a while either, so it was a good return.

For the week it was pretty low volume. I had planned on running a little less, and it was my first week under 50 in the last month and a half at 47. I only got in the pool twice and didn't get an opportunity to ride.

The week ahead, particularly with my ankle, may not be filled with much running. I want to take advantage of some potentially better weather to get on the bike.

January

I had a few unexpected road bumps in the month of January, but I've been making do and by volume it was one of my highest of the last few years.

My time on the bike was good at the very start of the month, but then faded in the middle and right now I've been more focused on running as it is - so I'm not completely concerned.

Running

For January I ran 246 miles. The most I've run in any other month since at least 2003 has been 206. My last 5 weeks have been 55, 55.5, 58.5, 62 and 58.5. Not bad considering I probably have only had 5 weeks over 50 in the last couple of years. I haven't been running very hard, I've been struggling enough with just the volume. This usually comes on 5 days of running so my average length run has bumped from the 7-8 range to 10-12.

We've also been handling the cold pretty well. As I've remarked to everyone, this is definitely the toughest winter since 2003. We had a lot more snow then, but it was easier to run on the snow than it is to run on ice. Patrick Reaves put it well when he described it like creme brulee. Ice on the top, snow underneath. Sucks for running.

This was true yesterday when Ben, Brennan and I took off for a 17 mile run from Ben's. I ran down from my house (3.5) wearing my super awesome Venom spider suit. First things first, I had to handle a hostage situation up at Penn Station. Upon leaving Penn Station, we noticed blood drops on the sidewalk. They last until Charles Village, so about a mile. We made it up pretty far on Charles, normally I'm only riding my bike up around there - I've never run that far. We descended into Robert E Lee Park on some real treacherous ice. That was where hostage situation: the sequel took place.

I was feeling better, and made it up the hills of Mt. Wash pretty well and into Pimlico before just really starting to feel terrible. Ben began to open it up, so I let him and Brennan go and just shuffled home through Druid Hill Park and down Fallsway. Then I noticed the blood again and it led into Ben's apt building!! It was crazy, like a CSI episode. Ultimately it was just under 21 miles, my longest since, well, the marathon. I'm pleased with just making it through.

Swimming

January yielded 36,000 meters. I was a little disappointed that I didn't swim more but I had a few positives. This past week was promising, on Friday I put in a 2500m straight swim. That's the most I've ever swam, and it felt alright. My goal is to build up to the hour+ range over the next few months. This was about 42 minutes. Not blazing, but I started around 1:43/100m and finished around 1:35/

Riding

Like I said, a pretty low month. Factors NOT helping were the weather, which has been very cold, and the past week the roads weren't great; no car - not having a car means I haven't gone out to Frederick yet; running more than I usually do.

So in terms of mileage it was only 210 for the month. Obviously that should be a WEEK, but like I said, I'll get that back fast.

Goals for February

I've got two races this month. The first is this Saturday, a 12k cross country race in which I will most certainly get my ass beat. I'm looking forward to that. Then in a few weeks we have Club Challenge, our loathsome 10 mile race in Columbia. I think I'm going to decrease my running mileage a little bit, and run a little faster perhaps over the next few weeks. I also want to make sure I ride some more, so I'm putting that on the front burner.

As far as swimming goes, I'm just going to keep doing what I do. It seems to work alright, and I seem to be ahead of where I was last January (32,100m swim; 291 miles on the bike; 168 miles running).

In other news, here is my website of the week: Snuggie Sightings

As Good As It Gets

It was 3pm on a Sunday, and we should have been in a cab headed to the airport. Instead we were sitting on Ocean Drive in South Beach drinking mojitos. I then realized that this was as good as life gets, or at least mine, anyway. The sun was shining, the drinks were strong and the girls were, well, not wearing very much clothing.

Our weekend getaway to the hottest part of Miami was the best weekend trip I've ever taken. The worst part of it was it having to come to an end. With ages ranging from 23 to 35ish, it could have been strange, but what resulted was an awesome couple days of fun in the sun.

Jen, Brennan and I arrived to sun and warmth around 2:30 on Friday afternoon, and met up with Ben and Justin at the Avalon Hotel on Ocean Drive, our home for the weekend. After lunch of empanadas and Coke we hit the beach for some late afternoon rays. It was awesome. More awesome than the beach was the plethora of volleyball courts situated directly across the street from the hotel, which provided more than its share of entertainment over the weekend.

My brother arrived a little while later and we hit the strip in search of food, entertainment and beverages. We were bombarded by ESL hostesses as we walked down the narrow and crowded sidewalk, until we came to a place that looked phenomenal. I won't lie - I was drawn in as much by the song that was playing (now I forget what it was) as the enticing half-priced 46 ounce beverages. After we had consumed our share of food and mojitos, we headed back to the hotel for a minute. Ben had prepared an appropriately themed "mix CD" which we listened to before hitting Mango's. While we were there we saw a lot. A LOT. At some point we had had enough, and Terence was late, but on his way, so we went somewhere else to meet him.

En route to our next destination we thought it would be a good idea to acquire straw hats. For some reason a store on Collins was still open, and thanks to some help from the Argentinian employees, we got our sweet hats. We met up with Terence and made our way to Delano's, which, besides from being completely out of our league, was awesome. And we got compliments on our hats.

We arrived back to the hotel vicinity around 2, and were lured by hunger into Johnny Rockets. It was the most delicious food I'd ever tasted in my life, and, satisfied, we all headed to sleep. Except for Ben, who had already passed out while we were waiting for our food at JRs.

Saturday was fairly uneventful, as planned. We woke up, hit the beach, ran to the Convention Center to get our stuff, and headed back. I went back to the beach for a little, and then we again went in search of dinner. This time we thought we'd avoid the drinking, so we went to Jerry's Famous Diner on Collins. We went back to the spot and went to sleep.

4am, Sunday. Actually, 3:59, one minute before the alarm. This was when I woke up. This is a time normally reserved for triathlons, but with a 6:15 race start (the earliest start time I've ever had) we had to get up early. Brennan again was saved by Johnny Rockets, who provided him with hot water for his oatmeal. Terence then came through by flagging down a van cab, so we all traveled the short trip to the start line together. We hopped out a few blocks away and made our way to gear check. One thing to keep in mind is that Terence booked a 7:30am flight. Our race starts at 6:15. You do the math. He was just planning on not making it.

Now we're in "downtown" Miami, I guess, and it left us wondering why anyone would go to Miami and not just stay in South Beach. The buildings are pretty awesome though.

And then it was race time. I forgot we had a race. Justin, Brennan, Ben and I got stuck with some pretty terrible start positioning, which meant we had to forceably push our way through to the front in the first half mile, and to make it worse it's pitch black. The four of us weaved with precision through the crowd and up the "beast" of a hill they have. We could see Terence in front of us. He had somehow managed to start on the front of the line. As we stormed down the bridge we had clocked a 5:58 mile. Not bad considering that start.

From there, Ben and Brennan took off while Justin and I stayed back a little. The trip east on the causeway was awesome. It was completely dark with the exception of the lights from the monster cruise ships alongside us. Totally cool. And totally fast, as we hit mile 2 in 5:37. I'm lucky half the time to hit that once during a race, so to run that at mile 2 was a little too ambitious. We consciously slowed down to 5:53 for mile 3, but then just before 4 I started to get gapped by Justin. Miles of 6:03 and 5:58 were to follow, putting me at 29:30 for 5.

Aerobically I was still comfortable, but my body seemed to be broken. My piriformis was hurting me worse than it has since fall of 2007, and both my feet were really hurting. It's weird. But it was cool to be running up Ocean Drive, passing our home for the weekend. And it was still dark! The sun wasn't even hitting the horizon as we cruised through miles 6 and finally by 7 it was starting to get light, but at this point we were headed back west. I was staying cool, despite the physical pain (and the tense hostage situation that was building) and hit miles of 6:04, 6:08 and 6:12. I was working out the math and thought if I could go 30:30 for my next 5 and hit 10 at 1:00:00, I could still go under 1:20.

Then I just couldn't do it. Or, rather, didn't do it. I no longer wished to kill myself for a subpar time, so I slowed my role. I ran 6:30, 6:40 and 6:41 for the next couple of miles. Terence had gone by and I cheered him on. We were running along the Venetian Causeway (built by John Collins, a farmer from NJ) and finally, at the 11 mile mark, the passing of me by some douchebag looking kids combined with the cheering spectators made me want to run again. I picked it up and quickly swept T back up. I was going to run 6's or better for the last 2 and 6:30 and still finishing that fast would have been good.

But Terence didn't look good, and I wasn't going to leave him. I ran it in with him, and the last two miles wound up being 6:32 (where I was catching him, then slowing back down) and 8:14 for the last 1.1. Shoot, 1:22:32 (on my watch), I definitely could have swept back 2 minutes in those last two miles to finish at 1:20:30. What was most important now was how do we get back to the beach??

Terence fell asleep in a port-o-potty. Then again on the sidewalk. He be sleep everywhere. Brennan also was not feeling great. Somehow this race had crushed our bodies. But not our spirits. We headed to the hotel, cleaned up, checked out and went to Johnny Rockets, where our waitresses appreciated our humor. And Lisa looked like Rihanna, except way hotter.

We then hit the beach for a few last bits of sunshine. Yesterday we had seen two dudes almost kiss in a desperate attempt to get these two girls to make out, as well as some teen Latinas posing on some beach furniture for their own private photo shoot. Oh, and a dude wearing a gross banana-hammock/thong. Sunday would provide us with our first glimpse of boobs - only they were about 100 years old. Each. Yuck.

After the beach we decided Wet Willie's was in order. Since it was only 1pm, it was pretty quiet, but you can see why Ludacris would shout it out. Ben had left us, and after leaving Wet Willie's, Justin and Brennan each made their way back to the hotel to TCOB. Meanwhile Terence was getting a 2nd wind and me, Jen and my brother weren't feeling bad to begin with, so we went back to Ocean's 10 for some mojitos. We spotted Miami Heat player Shawn Marion driving on Ocean Drive in a classic Cadillac convertible. We kept drinking until the absolute last possible minute, and then took a cab to Fort Lauderdale airport. Man was that far. Terence fell asleep in the van.

We arrived at the airport, where Terence managed to get on the plane. And yours truly managed to have to sit on a plastic bag cause his seat was wet. Not sure from what, and the flight attendants didn't really seem to care. Oh, and it wasn't supposed to be my seat in the first place, just some old dude and his wife were already sitting (he was supposed to be riding bitch) and I felt bad making them sit in it. So I then sat in the middle seat to boot.

When we landed at 8pm, the dream was over. The temperature hovered below 30 and I was wearing board shorts and a t-shirt. And my straw hat. I'll hold onto the dream a little longer.

76 miles

Over the last 7 days I have covered 76 miles on my feet.

Normally I wouldn't be so psyched about such an arbitrarily random number, but I haven't run this much in a week's time since 2001. I feel like my friends Jake, Pat Reaves or Ben right now with this much mileage! I'm actually surprised I've held up this well at all.

When I used to just run, I guess the most I ever ran was 85 per week. I was pretty consistent at that number, and it was always on 6 days and usually included 2 morning runs during the week. This time around it was 7 days/7 runs and included 40 miles in Patapsco and 4 runs that I would classify as "very hilly".

I have another 9 miles on tap for tomorrow, before taking Thursday as a no-run day, and then a couple short, easy runs on Friday/Saturday, leading up to Sunday's Miami Half Marathon. I'm quite looking forward to this escape, albeit brief, from the world up here.

As I was explaining to Kip, who has accompanied me for 32 of these miles, I'm trying a different approach to the tri season this year. I feel like my riding has gotten pretty good and I have a solid formula for success. I feel good about my swimming. My running, however, has been fairly stagnant. I needed a breakthrough, and the only way I was going to accomplish that was if I took this month with a little lighter swim/ride schedule and a big run one. So far so good.

Thanks For the Memories

What a week! The highlight came on Tuesday morning when I got word that my job was eliminated, effective immediately. That certainly threw me for a loop as it was completely unexpected. Certainly things could always be worse, but it still sucks.

As a result, I no longer have a vehicle, since it was a company car. The company was not very helpful, so I wound up driving to an office in White Marsh so they could pick it up, and I rode my bike home. That was Wednesday, so fortunately it wasn't terribly cold, but it wasn't very warm. At least it's only 12 miles away.

The good news was that I actually rode my trainer for the first time this season. I managed 90 minutes on Tuesday night. Rides over 90 minutes I always prefer the rollers, and didn't have the patience for that this week.

I did start feeling better running this week too. Wednesday was a quick paced run (for me, given my current fitness) of 12 miles @ 6:25 avg. I was a little tired on Thursday, but Friday, Kip and I hit Patapsco in the late afternoon for a 10 mile run. It was cold, dark and still throughout the park, but it was probably my best run of the new season.

Saturday I hit another 9 with Kip, and my current flavor is to do work everytime the road turns upward. I've been taking easy days really easy and putting in more specific efforts. Today I ran for 2 hours - 20ish minutes more than I've done this year and I felt alright doing it (with the exception of a liquidation event about 85 minutes in). 58.5 miles this week caps a great three week stretch for me of 169 miles. That's normally a month's worth of running for me.

I was going to try and ride today since the temperature is more hospitable, but I'm actually pretty worked from the run and the hour is late right now to go outside.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 8000 meters (two swims, eh)
Bike: 40 miles
Run: 58.5 miles

12 1/4 hours

The week ahead: I've obviously now got the task of finding a new job, so I will begin with that process this week. At the same time, I will focus a little on getting in a real quality week - hoping for about 200 miles on the bike (it'll be a short week as I am going to Miami on Friday) and 60 miles of running, culminating in the half down in MIA on Sunday.

Hangin' Tough

I'm tired. I'm old. I'm beat up. I feel like Tina Turner, or Lil' Kim's pussy.

Seriously, I can't remember the last time I had a good run, and this isn't one of those stories that ends with "...until tonight, when I went out there, got after it and killed my run." In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if this wall that I've seemingly hit is I-T. I'm sure it's not, but man, I am dying out there.

To my body's credit, it's handled things quite well these past 6 weeks. No days off since December 1st, so I guess that is up to 42 days, and the past two weeks I have run 55 and 55.5 miles, respectively. I've barely run over 50 miles in a week once every few months, so stringing two 50+ back to back weeks is proving harder on my body than I thought. I remember just a few years ago when this would represent 3.5 days of running. Now those days seem to be just a fond memory of when my body wasn't as beat up.

The "things that are wrong with me list" is growing these days, and it's resulting in some negative thoughts. For one, I feel as if I'm running slower and it's taking a lot more out of me than it should. But the more optimistic side of me is looking up, realizing the mileage is coming up and I should expect to be knocked down a little at first. I think the harder thing to overcome is the mental breakdown. We seem to have had a lot of "middle days" lately - ones that are cold enough to not ride outside but warm enough to have to make the conscious decision not to.

That was the case this weekend, as both my planned rides were scrapped. I did my first running "workout" of the new training cycle on Saturday at Derwood (more to come on this). By the time I got home - way later than planned - at 2:30, I was wrecked. And then it started to icy rain a little, so no riding outside for me. I woke up today at 5:45, looked outside and saw the wet roads, and felt how cold it was. I texted OJ and Tom and said there would be no riding in Frederick. It's not worth the drive to ride on slick roads out in Hateville.

The end result was a week without riding. Believe it or not, I'm okay with bike hiatuses in the winter. I'm confident enough in my ability to ride a bike fast for a while and know what I have to do to catapult myself into racing shape before the season.

The pool was another story. I got in 3 times for 10,000 meters, which isn't a bad week, but it was one good swim and two crappy ones.

Running was weird. I ran by myself for 3 of my 5 runs, but only because I'm running so slow I don't want anyone to have to run with me. Saturday a couple of us headed down to the Ag Park in Derwood to do a workout on the USATF XC course. I was glad to see everyone else had a good workout, but I just dogged it. We did get introduced to our new friend, Julia, who we have decided is ridiculous, inappropriate and hilarious. A perfect fit for the group.

Weekly Totals: 9.75 hours (big drop from previous two weeks but no riding)

Swim - 10,000m
Bike - 0
Run - 55.5 miles

But what else is new? There is, after all, more to life than training sometimes. Especially this time of year. Actually, I'm lying. There's not much going on by way of fun times, and lately I've been staying in the house a lot more.

On the Boob Tube: A new season of The Real World, Wednesdays at 10pm. The 21st edition of the show makes its way to a sick pier warehouse in Brooklyn. It's actually quite a diverse cast. And by diverse, I mean there's a post-op tranny. Sweet. Tuesdays just got a whole lot better with the return of Scrubs. Now on ABC, the show also returned to being funny, after 1.5 seasons of unfunnyness. Following Scrubs on FX is the 6th season now of Nip/Tuck. The first season of this show was amazing. Then it's just gotten weirder and weirder. I still watch, usually to see the hot chicks that get banged, but whatever, it's still a decent show.

Returning soon will be Lost (1/21 - back to Wednesdays!), and I'm sure new seasons of Survivor and Amazing Race will pick up after the Superbowl. Also, I saw the cast for the new Celebrity Apprentice and I'm partially amazed at who agreed to do it, so I may watch that.

Speaking of football, all is good on the homefront as Baltimore is celebrating the Ravens' success. A trip next week to Pittsburgh is all that separates them from the Superbowl. Should be pretty fun. Unfortunately for the Giants, their season ended today at the hands of the lowly Eagles. Oh well.

I'm currently watching the Golden Globes, which is the start to the televised awards season. I love these stupid things. Again, mostly for the hot chicks, but also because television and film are two staples in my life. I always wish I could be there and hobknob/politic with these folks.

I'm also trying to make some dietary changes by way of reducing the sugary cereals. Once I'm done with my current stock of Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks and Cocoa Krispies, I'm going to avoid them for a while. Maybe eat more eggs or oatmeal. Oatmeal with tons of brown sugar and maple syrup. Booyah.

The week ahead appears to be getting cold. This means the inevitable - I will, in fact, have to ride my bike inside. As much as my body will fight it, I'll have to do it. I might try and stack the front half of the week before it gets too cold. My goals are to get in the pool 4 times, run 57-58 miles and shoot, if the weather on the weekend isn't bad maybe finally get out to Frederick. Or at least do a real long ride.

Roctane

A few weeks ago I had a few packets of Roctane (made by Gu) sent over to me to try out, and, now that I've consumed them all, I wanted to take a moment to review them.

For starters, I'm a big fan of Gu. I have eaten the chocolate Gu religiously over the years, as they provide calories and also taste good, are easy to transport, and, most importantly, are a tremendous flat-fixer. If you ever get a flat and there is a noticeable gash in your tire, just eat one and stick it in the casing of the tire before putting the tube in. It'll protect the tire til you can get a new one, or in my case, can be ridden on for two years.

I then started eating Vanilla Gu, which is the best tasting one.

The Roctanes came and I wasn't sure what they were all about - they looked like normal Gu but I guess there is something different about them. Maybe more caffeine. Anyway, the flavors were Blueberry Pomegranate and Orange Creme or Orange Vanilla or something.

I brought them with me on each of my 50 mile rides over the 4 days I was home, and ate one at 90min and one at 2h15m. They provided an immediate boost of energy, moreso than the normal Gu, and weren't that bad tasting. I'll say I enjoy the Orange flavor better, and probably wouldn't buy Blueberry on my own, but I also don't like blueberry that much to begin with.

My recommendation is to always keep flavors simple - the more flavor combos you do, the more chance you have to mess up.

But these were some tasty little snacks and great for rides or runs, and now that I'm aware of them I'll probably make sure to carry one or two with me for that extra jolt when needed.

New Year's Week #5

I've got to say, I'm pretty pleased with how things have been going as of late. I'm not doing anything crazy by any means, but getting solid base work in and achieving levels of volume I haven't done consistently in years.

I intended on riding my bike this afternoon for about 2 hours, but with Godsey in town I figured it would be mildly rude to sit on my rollers for that long, or to go out on the road and disappear for a while. So I'm calling it a week as of 7pm on Sunday.

Swim: 1000 meters (more on this)
Bike: 150 miles (2 rides)
Run: 55 miles (6 runs)

This is one of my highest run weeks in the last couple of years (only went over 50 on four occasions last year) and it was done with some pretty good longer runs. I haven't been feeling very swift, and the runs are taking longer than I normally do, but I'm getting it in. I ran 14 miles today with the gang up at NCR Trail. I hate that place. I think it's mental, but it always feels like I'm running way harder than I should be to run 7 minute pace there.

Really psyched on the rides this week. I picked up my tuned up bike on Wednesday, and rode it on Thursday (New Year's Day). I left my house just before 10am, it was really cold and way windier than I expected. The combination of 20+ miles uphill and the headwind resulted in a super slow ride. I wound up picking up some help on the way back down, but was just out there all day by myself, with the exception of maybe 7 miles towards the end with some dude I caught up to. At just under 4.5 hours it was a long time to be out there for 67 miles, but whatever.

Yesterday was the complete opposite. I woke up after not too much sleep, and hopped on my bike at 7:40. I rode up to TriSpeed to meet Tom Stott and Sean, and we rode for an hour before meeting up with a group at 10am at Oregon Ridge. We rode with them for a little, then Tom and I broke off. The roads were amazing; empty, paved and scenic. It felt warmer in the morning, probably due to less wind, but as the wind picked up it became a tailwind for us home. I stopped at 7-11 in Timonium for a Milky Way, and then continued on my way home. Just about 85 miles, on my bike for a little over 5 hours. I came home, ate a little and changed, and then Kip, Godsey, Anthony and I hit the trails of Robert E Lee for about 7 miles.

Had I ridden today it would have been a 185 mile week, but I'm definitely tired from a 6.5 hour day yesterday and a "long" run today. This also isn't taking into account the 3am bedtime last night and another 7:30 wakeup call today.

Swimming - yeah. I didn't have time on Monday or Tuesday due to work, and then Wednesday I didn't realize the pool was closing early so I only had 20 minutes to swim. I just went in for a 150 warmup, 750 hard and then 100 cooldown. It was the least I could do. Then no time over the weekend. I'll get that back this week and maybe take it a little easier on the other two.

So it was a 17 hour week, just slightly below last week's but a great start to the new year. The week ahead should be a little more of the same, I'm going to try to keep around 55 miles a week of running for a few weeks, and hopefully introduce some indoor riding this week during the week. I'm okay with getting outside on the weekends but need to ride a little more during the week.

When It's Over

I waited a little long to wrap up 2008, so I'll combine posts. I want to grade myself on accomplishing my goals this year.

Columbia Triathlon

The goals were to swim under 22:30, ride under 1:05 and finish overall under 2h10m.

Check, to all 3. The swim was 22:23, just a few seconds off my PR there, but represented over 2:30 faster than 2007. The bike was 1:04:44, which represented a PR by 5:30. This was a HUGE breakthrough. Overall I went 2:08:40, which was a nearly 9 minute PR. I finished 27th overall (including the 12 pros ahead) and my bike split was 13th overall (2nd amateur I believe behind my friend Joe).

Running

The goals were to run a 16:30 5k, run my road PR in a 10k (34:08), run under 58 minutes for 10 miles, go under 1:17 at Philly Distance Run and run a 2:45 marathon.

Waaa-waaa, didn't hit a single one. 16:48 at Shamrock was as fast as I would go, but in fairness the event I would have expected to run 16:30 was cancelled, and at that point I didn't care as much. I only did the one open 10k, and it fell in the middle of some other bigger races, so I didn't take it as seriously, and I got fairly close to the 10 mile goal (58:12 at Broad Street). Had I been able to keep pace with Arjun after mile 7 at PDR, I would have slipped under my goal, but definitely fell apart and we all know what happened with the marathon.

I did, however, accomplish one running goal of winning a race - Terp Trot 5k.

Eagleman

The goal was to win my age group and qualify for Hawaii.

I did not. Enough said.

Other random goals

I wanted to take off fewer than 26 days of training and run 2,000 miles. I also wanted to compete in 26 total races, including 8 triathlons.

In actuality I took off around 42 I think it came to, and fell shy of 2,000 (1,874, still up from 1752 or something from the year before). I did 27 total races, including 7 triathlons and 1 bike TT.

I'm pleased with the results, it was a long year, and it felt long before I even hit the fall. The curse of August is still very much real, with some weird injuries plaguing me again in the late summer/early fall and curtailing some of my fall fun. After a little time off post-NYC and some mental refreshing, I feel ready to go. So far I've got a 32 day active streak going, and am already on pace for hitting some larger than usual volumes early in the season.

2009 Goals

Just as important at looking back is setting new goals. I think I'm going to structure things slightly different this year, and not be as concerned with things like total mileage, number of days off, number of races. I want to race less, that's for sure.

For me it's also very easy to have specific goals for each race I do, since I know what races I'll do this year already. The triathlons are real easy:

Columbia - I want to get into the 21:xx range in the swim, go 1:02:xx on the bike and 37:xx on the run. This would yield a good time and undoubtedly a solid placement.

Eagleman - Avoid the pitfalls from last year, for starters. I know I've got the wheels to do a 2:12 on the bike and 1:20 on the run, and if I could swim under 30 it would be an amazing day. No more qualifying spots for Hawaii means the pressure's off a little.

NJ State Tri - fastest bike split and top 5 overall

Ironman Arizona - I am preparing for a fast time but will not be disappointed with anything I do. I believe a one hour swim and five hour bike are reasonable, and then the run is a wildcard. It could be 3 hours, it could be 3.5, it could be 4. Either way, I absolutely want to be 9:45 or better.

The running races are a little different, because they won't be my first focus this year. At Miami next month I'd like to go under 1:20, and then not run slower than 60 minutes at Club Challenge. At Shamrock I think I can run a few seconds faster than last year, and then Boston Marathon will be the next big event where the goal will be to run an evenly paced, as comfortable as a marathon can be run.

Christmas Week #4

You can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind; cause your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance well, they're no friends of mine.

Christmas week was an interesting little test, not as much of physical fitness as it was fighting the demons of going home. I haven't stayed at home for as many consecutive days since 2005 (Tues night-Sat afternoon) and frequently I have trouble getting my training in while I'm up there. Most of this is due to being there for a short time, not feeling like dragging my bike up there and the fact that none of my friends run anymore.

In order to counteract this, I actually brought my rollers home. I was determined to ride no matter what, even if it meant riding inside. Fortunately it didn't come to that, and the week yielded my 2nd highest week by hours of 2008!

I ran fairly easy Monday, and despite feeling like ass put in a decent 3600m in the pool on Tuesday. This would be the only swim of the week. Wednesday morning I was home and ran at Hartshorne, site of my ankle's destruction back in 2003. Conditions were rough, with ice and frozen mud all up on the trails, and it was sleeting. I muddled through 11 miles, and called it a day as I then had to begin Christmas shopping.

Thursday was Christmas, and as tradition prescribes, I strive for at least a 50 mile ride. I headed out toward the beach in 50 degree weather, and in spite of the wind managed a decent ride to the end of Sandy Hook, and then up Scenic Drive and back through Middletown. Of course, I left my house at 2, so as I rolled back in at 5 it was dark.

Friday I got out at 12, it was about 10 degrees cooler but I was still rocking short gloves. I was actually really cold, but was too lazy to go back to the house in the first quarter mile. This day I headed south and west, towards Manasquan Reservoir. Some great roads exist out there; little traffic, long, slightly undulating stretches make for fast riding. 3 hours later I was back home, and met up with Pereless at Tatum for an easy 7 miles. He had just eaten at Five Guys so needless to say it was not a fast run. Again, finished in the dark.

Saturday was a little warmer again but this time was actively precipitating. Because it wasn't raining at the start of the ride, I left at noon and headed out for the same ride as Thursday. As I neared the beach, it was super foggy and so humid there were just raindrops in the air. Wind wasn't bad, but I was really cold and wet. But, I managed the 3 hour ride again.

I drove back to Baltimore and due to a housekey fiasco did not go for a run, but when I woke up on Sunday morning it was 65 degrees! Really windy, but 65 degrees. Pretty awesome. I headed down to Columbia and met up with Scotty, and we rolled (on very wet roads) towards Centennial Park to meet Zero. We had a sweet tailwind for the first half of the ride, but then we turned into the wind and it was brutal. We picked it up a little towards the end, then with 3 miles to go Tom got a flat. Another 50 mile ride, making 4 straight - 200 miles in 4 days on 3 hours a day. I was tired.

Since I had only run 3 days this week, I had to run in the afternoon, so after dropping my bike off at TriSpeed (I am working on coming up with a female name for my bike, as I will be spending considerable time with her this year) I headed back down to Patapsco to meet Jake. This run turned into a tough run, the trails were sloppy and I was beat to the street. We crawled through a challenging and slow 11+ miles. At this point I was totally worked and it was 5 o'clock - I had been out since 8.

The week wound up looking like this:

Swim - 3600m (only had access to the pool the one day really)
Run - 37 miles (4 runs)
Bike - 200 miles (4 rides)

18.25 hours. That's a huge week for me and a great way to end 2008. I need to recover a little over the next few days, and then bang from Thursday through Sunday again. Then I plan on taking the following week pretty easy.

In other news, Terps play their bowl game tomorrow at 4:30, so GO TERPS!

Celtic Solstice 2008

Celtic Solstice is another one of my favorite events, and definitely my favorite end-of-season wintertime race. Normally I can't stand racing in the cold, but this race is worth it. First, it's grown by leaps and bounds in its nearly 10 years of life. There were 2800 registered competitors for yesterday's edition, and even though only 1800 were officially timed (some people forget to pick up the chip, etc), that's still a ton for a late December 5 miler.

More importantly, Jim Adams does a great job with the race premium. No "free" t-shirt, just an optional premium for $35. In years past we've received Brooks technical shirts, then a pretty cool half-zip long sleeve thing, then last year it was a really sweet jacket. This year I think is the best so far, being an awesome and totally comfortable fleece. There are a ton of people who only sign up for the race to get this premium.

The first two years I ran the race, in 2005 and 2006, I magically ended up with the same time and place. Last year I raced it, feeling pretty good for some reason heading into December. This year I wasn't sure what to expect. I feel like a 30min 5 miler has got to be pretty standard for me now, assuming I'm running, but to go much faster than 29 at this point was going to take a lot of effort, seeing as I've run about 100 miles in the last two months, with most of that coming in the last couple of weeks.

I toed the line next to the squad of Justin, Dr. J, Scotty and MGP, and as the gun went off, the race went tearing up the first hill. It's about a quarter of a mile up before taking a right hand turn, and I felt like I was sprinting. My HR skyrocketed before finally settling in. I was keeping most of my friends in sight, but just couldn't bridge up. I hit the first mile in a surprisingly slow 6:03. Either it was long, I thought, or man am I out of shape!

The 2nd mile last year I remembered as being short, so I think things may have been adjusted this year, as I came through in 5:55. At least I was heading in a better direction. The cold was taking its toll and I was really not feeling comfortable. Another thing I love about this race is the number of people that shout me out during it, since it's got an out and back at one point. It's always fun to spot your friends and it helps pump you up. I hit mile 3 in 5:54, so at least I was consistent. I headed down around the lake and was caught in the middle, just running by myself. Someone behind me was making a terrible sound, like they were dying. I then caught up to Weems McFadden of HoCo (interestingly enough he possessed the number ahead of me) and we came through mile 4 in 5:58.

I was still quite uncomfortable but knew the race was almost done, if I could just get around the Moorish Tower and back onto the road I'd have a nice downhill. I get to that point and deja vu prevailed - Eric, Will and Pete are standing there alerting me that if I don't run faster I'm going to get "girled" (act of getting beat by a girl). The same thing happened last year. So I made sure I sprinted in, and put it out there with a 5:35 last mile, crossing the line at 29:28.

At first glance, this is 22 seconds slower than I ran last year, but I had also been running for a while last year and had somewhat of a base underneath me. I had already done the NCR Trail Half and then run 16 miles in the Metric Marathon (not to mention the little xc meet) - so I was definitely more race ready than I was yesterday.

Dave kept his stranglehold on the race, winning for the third straight year in a most excellent time of 25:08, while Kyle was 2nd in 25:18. Collin Anderson had a great race, crossing in 27:55, and then it was Justin, Mike and Tom Stott (28:10, 28:15, 28:46).

Weekly Wrap-Up

And now for the weekly wrap up.

This week was even less by volume than last, but I'm okay with it. Just under 8 hours I think, but I haven't taken any days off.

Swim: 9,000 meters
Bike: 0 miles
Run: 41 miles

I was really tired this week, and the current work situation is getting more and more stressful with the state of the automotive union, so it was a pretty rough couple of days.

However, I had a great swim on Friday night, rolling 2000m straight in 34:05. By 500 I went 8:45, 8:38, 8:30, 8:10. I felt pretty good, and was pleased with the effort.

I had a "good" week running, going over 40 miles for the first time in two months. Monday was real warm and we got after it on the run. Wednesday was a little more chill, and then I ran with Kip on Thursday in Mt. Washington for some slow hills. Saturday I raced, and then today I did our Wednesday Night Run in one of the slowest times I've ever done it, which was good.

This week is a bigger week, thanks to a few days off from work. I need to see if I can get my bike fixed up on Tuesday before I head home, and then knock out 5 days of rides. I won't get to swim much, so running and riding will be the staple workouts for the week.

Ironman on TV

For the past few Sundays, VS has been televising some of the Ironman events from the past year. I watch most of them knowing the results, but interested in seeing how the races have unfolded on camera. I've watched the half from St. Croix, and the fulls at Louisville, Arizona, Lake Placid and Wisconsin. It's amazing stuff to watch.

Last night I attacked the big one that taped from Saturday - NBC's coverage of the Hawaii Ironman. Normally you can't watch this without tears as they tell some over the top story of the person who overcame some terrible tragedy. This year was a little different. Gone were the Dick Hoyts, or the Brian Boyles. There were a couple of inspiring tales, mostly serving as fodder to get you to join the Navy I think.

But a large part of it focused on the pain of this race, and how it affects even the most seasoned pros. The two winners, Craig Alexander and Chrissie Wellington, both owned their races and looked cool doing it. Just about everyone else seemed to get crushed by it. As a professional, whose season and life centers around this race, I just don't get how they can all be destroyed by it. But, I understand how they can be destroyed by it, having gone through a few terrible experiences this year myself.

So Arjun and I watched the coverage and were pretty amazed at the race, and then it got me thinking - what am I doing?? This is going to really hurt, and I've got a year to get ready for it and the course doesn't seem all that challenging. I suppose that's relative, because the distance is the same, and flatter courses pose the challenge of having to pedal the whole time; 3 lap courses get boring; Arizona's pretty warm.

We'll see how things go. I'm on track for a pretty decent week, hoping to get in another 100 or so miles of riding this weekend, with about 45 miles of running and 12,000m in the pool. Next week with Wednesday through Sunday off I'll look to make a big week on the bike, so I need to make sure I get my bike problem worked out quick!