"I'm a be the syrup she can be my waffle" ~ JT
Justin Timberlake hosted SNL this weekend and it was pretty much the best episode, start to finish, I've ever seen. Every skit was funny and on point, and there was another magical digital short courtesy of Andy Samberg and JT.
A remark about my race from Thursday before I move on to Sunday's event:
"YOU GOT GIRLED?" Thanks Jennifer, yes, I did get girled. It was great.
Then from Alyssa's trip on the train to NY:
"The woman next to me just asked me if I was allergic to PB so she could eat a Reeses cup. And then she didn't offer me one and she had a King Size pack! The world is cruel."
To which I replied, what, you think she's obligated to give you one?
"We are sitting within inches and not even an armrest to separate us. Obligated is an understatement."
Onto the Kinetic Sprint Triathon...
Overall I would rate my performance as a B. Nothing about it stood out as being particularly awesome or particularly terrible, other than my horrendous T2. I went into the race relaxed - almost too relaxed - and that showed in how slow I performed simple tasks such as putting on shoes.
I've been feeling pretty broken lately, which really has me down. This is normally a time of year when I feel good, but for the last 3 weeks my knee has been really bothering me. If I don't get it worked out soon, I'm going to be in SERIOUS trouble for the next two months.
I woke up at 4:15 on Sunday and it was windy here in Baltimore. This guy David picked me up and we drove down to VA together. Travel time was right on 2 hours. It was gorgeous down at Lake Anna, in fact, it was likely the nicest weather I've ever raced in. Temp was perfect, water temp was comfortable, no wind, and sunshine and blue skies abound. It was weird. Especially considering how nasty last year's race was. OJ and I warmed up with 2 pretty quick miles, and then I put on my new Zoot wetsuit (a big thank you to the team for presenting me with that). The start was hectic as they've done away with Open division at this race. This upsets me because, as a not-great swimmer, I prefer not having a ton of people thrashing around me, for me to just end up passing them later. I've never been stopped dead in my tracks as many times as I was during the first half of this short swim.
Once I found some open water I really started moving. I passed a lot of people and headed into T1 in a decent position. Upon examining the results, my swim time was 11:00/43rd fastest of the dudes. Since they had obviously shortened the course from last year, it's hard to say if it was faster or slower than last year's - so I use OJ as my measuring bar. Last year he swam 10:15 to my 13:45; this year he was 8:23 to my 11:00. While I'm sure he didn't swim completely all-out, I clearly didn't either, so I'll take a 2:37 deficit. Maybe things are looking up for the swim this year at Columbia! Wetsuit felt awesome.
I got onto the bike and yet again had problems with my cleats. I better figure it out in the next few days. It feels like they're too tight for the pedals, but I don't know how that would happen. So here I am, trying to ride uphill with one shoe clipped in and the other not. I rode the first mile of the course with my left shoe unclipped before finally jamming it in. Once I got that squared, I was good. I don't think it cost me a ton of time, but it was definitely worth something. I then blasted up the opening climb and onto the roads, passing a bunch of people early. Then it was quiet. Eerily quiet. Nobody behind me, nobody in front of me. I would rate my effort out of 10 as a 6. I definitely had more in me, but not having done much on the bike this year left me cautious. If I was limited by anything yesterday, it would have been my legs, not my lungs, which is good for now.
In the end, I had the 10th fastest bike split at 45:45. Disappointed because last year in the rain I rode a 46:05, and it was three weeks earlier in the season. So from that point I had nearly a month until Columbia to get in better shape. This year I've got just a week. So I don't know what to expect next weekend, but I hope to ride about the same as last year. I'd take that.
Into T2 and I really don't know why it took so long, but I felt it. It was like I was being too neat putting on my socks and shoes. I should have just said screw the socks, I definitely would have been fine without them. There's 10 seconds. Then I went the wrong way, there's a few more. Blah blah blah, better fix it before next week.
Onto the run and I was feeling alright. I felt like I tore into it, sprinting up the hill. I saw a 1 mile marked on the road and looked at my watch - 4:56. Clearly not a mile, but I figured I had to be running pretty quick. Then I see the 1 mile sign, and it was 6:16. Ouch, that's real bad news. Granted it's a hard, completely uphill mile, but Columbia is just as hard. The 2nd mile I was stuck in limbo. Not really picking anybody up, not gonna get passed. Just kept pressing and ran a 6:15. Arrgghh. Now the downhill last mile, thought I could pick it up but I felt like I was slowing down.
I brought it home, crossing the line with a 19:23 5k. That is 1:06 slower than I ran last year - again, in the rain. I figured I could walk under 18 this year. Guess not. This is the most disappointing part of my race. With a week to go before Columbia, I could have used the confidence of an 18min 5k off the bike.
The end result was another 11th place finish. 4 dudes from the wave behind (35+) beat me on time. Of all the disciplines, today I'm most pleased with my swim. I am very frustrated, though, with how my knee feels. It feels broken. And the inside of my left ankle too. I'm falling apart and I'm just at the beginning of the season.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I wish I hadn't run as much as I did this winter. Let's face it, I'm going to run just as fast or slow off 45 miles a week as I am at 70+ if I'm doing the riding and swimming too. Now I've got to amend my little plan, taking it pretty easy this week and going into Columbia rested, and might have to recover for a few days after that.
The good news is that OJ got the win, leading wire to wire. Always nice when your friends have success, so good job buddy. He had informed me a day or two before the race that I was the highest place returning finisher from last year, which was a first for me. Now we've got to go back next year so OJ can defend the title. David, who drove me down, did well, as did DC-friend Kelzie, who finished 5th for the women.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Friday, May 08, 2009
1st Annual Alumni Mile
When I first heard that Maryland was going to host an Alumni Mile, I was super psyched. That it was on a Thursday night was even more awesome - a twilight meet! I figured it would be part of an intersquad meet, just to give the kids another chance to run before heading home or onward to regionals, IC4As, whatever. Then I found out that it was a quasi-legitimate "last chance" meet and there would be some fast people.
I tried to rally support for the Alumni Mile, encouraging as many people as I know live in the area to come out. The attendance was not as great as it could have been, but those of us there had immeasurable amounts of fun.
I picked up Doug Allen, my old roommate, and we headed down to the meet amidst intermittent (wait for it...) rain. It has rained every day for a week now. Wednesday night I thought was a culmination, but it was just as bad during the day Thursday. Nothing like screwing up my ability to ride outdoors this late in the spring. Back to the story. We get to campus and run into a few people right away, including Matt Sanders. The 3 of us, plus Tom Stott, were all psyched to be there.
Tom and I head out for our warmup, and I wanted to run around as much of campus as we could so we toured North Campus, weaved in and out and finally ran back up Campus Drive to the track. I felt terrible. My legs are beyond beat, which is to be expected given my increased volume of other things, so I was just hoping to not completely embarrass myself in this short race.
Fast forward to race time and we've got the 4 of us, Bobby Van Allen, Pat Reaves, TWSS teammate Denise Knickman, Maryland women's mile record holder Rosalind Sheppard and the trio of Laurel Jefferson, Ali Carney and Shari Gorga. I didn't realize we don't have a "line" to indicate where a full mile should start so they broke the measuring tape out for the "whole 9" and lined us up. Gun goes off, and honestly after about 50 feet I knew I was in for a rough day. I really just have not been running well, feeling well or enjoying running for weeks now.
I come through my first lap in something like 75, and if that felt hard, I was obviously not going to run any faster than that, so 5:00 was out of the question. I traipsed through the puddles in lane 1, sitting a few seconds back of Tom, Matt and Laurel. While the view from behind on Laurel was not one I would complain about, I was not enjoying my inability to not run faster than her. The gap would stay pretty constant for the remainder of the race, and I would finish at a sad 5:13. I'm glad that I can go out for my first mile of a 10 mile race in 5:20 and have it not feel as hard as that did. I really just didn't have the legs today!
Doug somehow ran a 4:44. That kid is amazing to me. Sanders, who allegedly has not run in 3 years, and was also sporting a Tier 3 sex offender mustache, slipped under 5 (4:59). PR ran a PR, 4:36. Tom was 5:01 and Laurel was 5:05. Quick little girl.
The race seemed to be the highlight of the meet; the attention of the sparse crowd and teams was completely focused on watching us, which was pretty cool. After the race they had brought in some delicious Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, so I ate one as we cooled down. I figure I need to learn how to eat chicken sandwiches while running for later this year. Tom and I cooled down for about 30 minutes, running down Knox to Route 1, then up to Queens Chapel and down through the old neighborhoods, before running up College Ave and campus. Then I ate another chicken sandwich and watched the rest of the meet, including TWSS teammate Ed "Cheese" Aramayo run a 4:07 1500m.
As everyone parted, it was time for me, Doug and Sanders to hit the town. It was 9:30 but Santa Fe was like a ghost town. I loathe paying covers too. We stayed there for a little before heading to Cornerstone, which was marginally more crowded. After a little while there, Sanders was informed of a track party taking place and the three of us tools began walking about a half mile away, only to have him not remember where the house was/not get a call back from the person with whom he was communicating. Back to Cornerstone. Now it was really crowded, and we left there after a minute and headed for the trifecta - Bentley's.
In college this was pretty much the only place I went. I don't know why. I hate it there. Being there last night reminded me why. I guess a lot of people go to that Thirsty Turtle place now, which, alas, I've been to.
1:40 comes and it's time to leave, so Doug and I head to Cluck U, since there is no more WaWa. And here is where the best part of the night comes - Cluck U Pac is still working there! It has been 10 years since I started school and first encountered Cluck U Pac. The dude seriously looks identical to 2Pac, and apparently he and Pac actually did grow up somewhat around one another and were allegedly boys. Cluck U Pac even has an album or two that he sells out of his car. I remember the Diamondback article like it was yesterday... Anyway he gives me my Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and 10 chicken tenders and off we go. It is a mob scene down on Route 1, so we drive and eat in the car. I have now consumed 3 chicken sandwiches and a couple of tenders, and I get home at 3am.
What a night.
I tried to rally support for the Alumni Mile, encouraging as many people as I know live in the area to come out. The attendance was not as great as it could have been, but those of us there had immeasurable amounts of fun.
I picked up Doug Allen, my old roommate, and we headed down to the meet amidst intermittent (wait for it...) rain. It has rained every day for a week now. Wednesday night I thought was a culmination, but it was just as bad during the day Thursday. Nothing like screwing up my ability to ride outdoors this late in the spring. Back to the story. We get to campus and run into a few people right away, including Matt Sanders. The 3 of us, plus Tom Stott, were all psyched to be there.
Tom and I head out for our warmup, and I wanted to run around as much of campus as we could so we toured North Campus, weaved in and out and finally ran back up Campus Drive to the track. I felt terrible. My legs are beyond beat, which is to be expected given my increased volume of other things, so I was just hoping to not completely embarrass myself in this short race.
Fast forward to race time and we've got the 4 of us, Bobby Van Allen, Pat Reaves, TWSS teammate Denise Knickman, Maryland women's mile record holder Rosalind Sheppard and the trio of Laurel Jefferson, Ali Carney and Shari Gorga. I didn't realize we don't have a "line" to indicate where a full mile should start so they broke the measuring tape out for the "whole 9" and lined us up. Gun goes off, and honestly after about 50 feet I knew I was in for a rough day. I really just have not been running well, feeling well or enjoying running for weeks now.
I come through my first lap in something like 75, and if that felt hard, I was obviously not going to run any faster than that, so 5:00 was out of the question. I traipsed through the puddles in lane 1, sitting a few seconds back of Tom, Matt and Laurel. While the view from behind on Laurel was not one I would complain about, I was not enjoying my inability to not run faster than her. The gap would stay pretty constant for the remainder of the race, and I would finish at a sad 5:13. I'm glad that I can go out for my first mile of a 10 mile race in 5:20 and have it not feel as hard as that did. I really just didn't have the legs today!
Doug somehow ran a 4:44. That kid is amazing to me. Sanders, who allegedly has not run in 3 years, and was also sporting a Tier 3 sex offender mustache, slipped under 5 (4:59). PR ran a PR, 4:36. Tom was 5:01 and Laurel was 5:05. Quick little girl.
The race seemed to be the highlight of the meet; the attention of the sparse crowd and teams was completely focused on watching us, which was pretty cool. After the race they had brought in some delicious Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, so I ate one as we cooled down. I figure I need to learn how to eat chicken sandwiches while running for later this year. Tom and I cooled down for about 30 minutes, running down Knox to Route 1, then up to Queens Chapel and down through the old neighborhoods, before running up College Ave and campus. Then I ate another chicken sandwich and watched the rest of the meet, including TWSS teammate Ed "Cheese" Aramayo run a 4:07 1500m.
As everyone parted, it was time for me, Doug and Sanders to hit the town. It was 9:30 but Santa Fe was like a ghost town. I loathe paying covers too. We stayed there for a little before heading to Cornerstone, which was marginally more crowded. After a little while there, Sanders was informed of a track party taking place and the three of us tools began walking about a half mile away, only to have him not remember where the house was/not get a call back from the person with whom he was communicating. Back to Cornerstone. Now it was really crowded, and we left there after a minute and headed for the trifecta - Bentley's.
In college this was pretty much the only place I went. I don't know why. I hate it there. Being there last night reminded me why. I guess a lot of people go to that Thirsty Turtle place now, which, alas, I've been to.
1:40 comes and it's time to leave, so Doug and I head to Cluck U, since there is no more WaWa. And here is where the best part of the night comes - Cluck U Pac is still working there! It has been 10 years since I started school and first encountered Cluck U Pac. The dude seriously looks identical to 2Pac, and apparently he and Pac actually did grow up somewhat around one another and were allegedly boys. Cluck U Pac even has an album or two that he sells out of his car. I remember the Diamondback article like it was yesterday... Anyway he gives me my Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and 10 chicken tenders and off we go. It is a mob scene down on Route 1, so we drive and eat in the car. I have now consumed 3 chicken sandwiches and a couple of tenders, and I get home at 3am.
What a night.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
I Have to Levy a Duty
Toilet humor is the bane of my existence. It never gets old. Each and every day I live on this earth, it is my goal to come up with a new way to express the need to make feces.
These euphemisms get used at least 20 times per day, and are often put into action at least once per run. Sometimes more. Sometimes when you least expect it.
Here are a few of the good ones we have come up with here at Fleet St:
Release some hostages - as in, I have a hostage situation and negotiations are not going well
Grow a tail
Mudbutt - an oldie but a goodie
And this weekend while watching a History Channel production of "Bootleggers, Rumrunners and Moonshiners," we were inspired:
Levy a Duty - First, it sounds official. Second, it uses the word "duty." Doesn't get much better than that.
Just to show you how shit-obsessed we are, here is an email my mother sent me:
Before You Flush
Look inside the bowl to learn about your health.
Why is it that when it comes to bathroom habits, guys seem to turn into a bunch of 12-year-olds ("Just taking the Browns to the Super Bowl!")? But even if potty talk grosses you out, flushing and running isn't the best strategy either. Docs say that what's in the toilet can provide important clues to your health. Yale gastroenterologist Anish Sheth, M.D., the author of What's Your Poo Telling You? and Poo Log, says, "What comes out tells you a lot about what's going on inside." Here he explains what you should look out for. Take a deep breath. You can handle this.
Flush factor: Consistency What you should see: A stool that's compact yet soft enough to be passed very easily. What you shouldn't: A bowel movement that's broken up or watery. An ideal download shouldn't require a lot of pushing or straining, Sheth says. To achieve that, drink plenty of water and get at least 25 grams of fiber per day. On the other hand, stools that are looser than a Rock of Love contestant can signal food intolerance. The most likely culprits: the milk sugar lactose, the artificial sweetener sorbitol (found in sugar-free gum), or the wheat protein gluten. A food diary can help you determine whether grilled cheese, Orbit, or whole-wheat pizza crusts are to blame. If changing your diet doesn't get results, see a GI specialist. Your symptoms could be caused by a bacterial infection or an allergy.
Flush Factor: Color What you should see: Cocoa, mahogany, burnt umber, cafe au lait...What you shouldn't: Regular appearances from hues that aren't in the brown family Sheth is down with anything brown, but says not to worry if something you ate temporarily changes a stool's color. Blueberries and beets, for example, can tint your business blue and red, respectively. Persistent red or black stools, however, are often caused by blood in the digestive tract, which may signal stomach ulcers or hemorrhoids. Yellow floaters occur when there's fat in the stool, which means your body is having trouble digesting food properly. And pale gray stools typically result from gallstones. If an abnormal palette persists for more than a day or two, keep a record and take it to your doctor.
Flush Factor: Shape What you should see: A single, bananalike shape. What you shouldn't: A pencil-thin stool. "One long piece means you're getting enough insoluble fiber, which adds bulk to your stool," Sheth says. To get your fill of the rough stuff, have a bowl of bran cereal for breakfast, or snack on broccoli dipped in hummus. Skinny BMs can indicate a serious problem—namely, rectal cancer. See a doctor for a colonoscopy if your deposits are persistently scrawny or become thinner over several weeks.
These euphemisms get used at least 20 times per day, and are often put into action at least once per run. Sometimes more. Sometimes when you least expect it.
Here are a few of the good ones we have come up with here at Fleet St:
Release some hostages - as in, I have a hostage situation and negotiations are not going well
Grow a tail
Mudbutt - an oldie but a goodie
And this weekend while watching a History Channel production of "Bootleggers, Rumrunners and Moonshiners," we were inspired:
Levy a Duty - First, it sounds official. Second, it uses the word "duty." Doesn't get much better than that.
Just to show you how shit-obsessed we are, here is an email my mother sent me:
Before You Flush
Look inside the bowl to learn about your health.
Why is it that when it comes to bathroom habits, guys seem to turn into a bunch of 12-year-olds ("Just taking the Browns to the Super Bowl!")? But even if potty talk grosses you out, flushing and running isn't the best strategy either. Docs say that what's in the toilet can provide important clues to your health. Yale gastroenterologist Anish Sheth, M.D., the author of What's Your Poo Telling You? and Poo Log, says, "What comes out tells you a lot about what's going on inside." Here he explains what you should look out for. Take a deep breath. You can handle this.
Flush factor: Consistency What you should see: A stool that's compact yet soft enough to be passed very easily. What you shouldn't: A bowel movement that's broken up or watery. An ideal download shouldn't require a lot of pushing or straining, Sheth says. To achieve that, drink plenty of water and get at least 25 grams of fiber per day. On the other hand, stools that are looser than a Rock of Love contestant can signal food intolerance. The most likely culprits: the milk sugar lactose, the artificial sweetener sorbitol (found in sugar-free gum), or the wheat protein gluten. A food diary can help you determine whether grilled cheese, Orbit, or whole-wheat pizza crusts are to blame. If changing your diet doesn't get results, see a GI specialist. Your symptoms could be caused by a bacterial infection or an allergy.
Flush Factor: Color What you should see: Cocoa, mahogany, burnt umber, cafe au lait...What you shouldn't: Regular appearances from hues that aren't in the brown family Sheth is down with anything brown, but says not to worry if something you ate temporarily changes a stool's color. Blueberries and beets, for example, can tint your business blue and red, respectively. Persistent red or black stools, however, are often caused by blood in the digestive tract, which may signal stomach ulcers or hemorrhoids. Yellow floaters occur when there's fat in the stool, which means your body is having trouble digesting food properly. And pale gray stools typically result from gallstones. If an abnormal palette persists for more than a day or two, keep a record and take it to your doctor.
Flush Factor: Shape What you should see: A single, bananalike shape. What you shouldn't: A pencil-thin stool. "One long piece means you're getting enough insoluble fiber, which adds bulk to your stool," Sheth says. To get your fill of the rough stuff, have a bowl of bran cereal for breakfast, or snack on broccoli dipped in hummus. Skinny BMs can indicate a serious problem—namely, rectal cancer. See a doctor for a colonoscopy if your deposits are persistently scrawny or become thinner over several weeks.
Monday, May 04, 2009
3 Hour Tour
F*** land I'm on a motherf***ing boat - "I'm on a Boat"
It's felt like I've been on a boat since the rain started on Wednesday. Asides from a little respite on Friday afternoon, it's been wet and overcast and there is a feeling of malaise.
After about a week of no running following Boston, I got back into it this week with just a shade under 40 miles. I felt worse each day that I ran throughout the week, which is rarely a good sign. Tuesday I thought I would try my hand at the workout, which was a good one: 3x(1600 at tempo pace/200 jog; 800 at 5k pace/400 jog; 400 at mile pace/5min). The goal for me was 5:40-5:45 for the mile, and I ran 5:41. But my legs felt like garbage and I figured there was no point in making them feel worse, so I stopped.
The two highlights of the week were on the bike. I rode 50 on Thursday with OJ, and after the two big days from the previous weekend, I was feeling much stronger. We kept the tempo high and I was glad to have a good ride and also not get rained on.
Saturday's plan was a shorter ride than I normally do on the weekend, but we were doing intervals so any longer would have been tough. Zero joined us for what became his longest ride ever. The weather was not super cooperative, as we started our intervals on Mountain Rd - into the wind and rain, and for a few miles the road was grated and devastating on the bung to ride.
Nevertheless, we had a great workout, with timed intervals of 5-10-15-15-10-5 minutes in the middle of the ride. And while I was tired toward the end, we charged up the hills of Charles St in Towson and made it home with 63ish miles. Seems pretty paltry compared to last weekend, but I need a few more efforts like this before I'm ready to really get after it.
Sunday was the shittiest day of the week. I crashed at BrenJun's and planned on running back to Canton in the morning to watch some friends run the Making Tracks for Celiac 5k/10k, which started at 9. Around 8:50 I finally decided to start walk/running over there, which is probably about 3 miles away. It was miserable, and I was just shuffling along with my backpack, getting soaked. Just over the bridge by Pier 5 I heard someone shout my name out - it was my cousin, who was on her run. She and I ran together back to where I was headed for the race. I got there and it was 9:20 or something, so I had just missed a few of my friends finish. I then sat there and waited for the awards with them, which took until 11.
The rain picked up and the temperature dropped, so there was to be no riding for me. I was contemplating going to the pool, but didn't want to leave the house, so I called it a day.
The good news was that results from the team's efforts over the weekend were awesome!
This week I'm going to begin ramping up some harder efforts. I've got the Kinetic Sprint Tri this Sunday, hard to believe tri season is here. Last year it was 3 weekends earlier, but the weather forecast is probably the same. It was 55 degrees and POURING last year, the worst rain I've ever competed in. If it does the same this year I'm going to be pretty ticked.
But first I have the Alumni Mile down in College Park this Thursday night. I'm excited to go back and see some of the old teammates. The race is part of a twilight/last chance meet, so the competition for the real events will be pretty good. I'm just hoping to break 5.
It's felt like I've been on a boat since the rain started on Wednesday. Asides from a little respite on Friday afternoon, it's been wet and overcast and there is a feeling of malaise.
After about a week of no running following Boston, I got back into it this week with just a shade under 40 miles. I felt worse each day that I ran throughout the week, which is rarely a good sign. Tuesday I thought I would try my hand at the workout, which was a good one: 3x(1600 at tempo pace/200 jog; 800 at 5k pace/400 jog; 400 at mile pace/5min). The goal for me was 5:40-5:45 for the mile, and I ran 5:41. But my legs felt like garbage and I figured there was no point in making them feel worse, so I stopped.
The two highlights of the week were on the bike. I rode 50 on Thursday with OJ, and after the two big days from the previous weekend, I was feeling much stronger. We kept the tempo high and I was glad to have a good ride and also not get rained on.
Saturday's plan was a shorter ride than I normally do on the weekend, but we were doing intervals so any longer would have been tough. Zero joined us for what became his longest ride ever. The weather was not super cooperative, as we started our intervals on Mountain Rd - into the wind and rain, and for a few miles the road was grated and devastating on the bung to ride.
Nevertheless, we had a great workout, with timed intervals of 5-10-15-15-10-5 minutes in the middle of the ride. And while I was tired toward the end, we charged up the hills of Charles St in Towson and made it home with 63ish miles. Seems pretty paltry compared to last weekend, but I need a few more efforts like this before I'm ready to really get after it.
Sunday was the shittiest day of the week. I crashed at BrenJun's and planned on running back to Canton in the morning to watch some friends run the Making Tracks for Celiac 5k/10k, which started at 9. Around 8:50 I finally decided to start walk/running over there, which is probably about 3 miles away. It was miserable, and I was just shuffling along with my backpack, getting soaked. Just over the bridge by Pier 5 I heard someone shout my name out - it was my cousin, who was on her run. She and I ran together back to where I was headed for the race. I got there and it was 9:20 or something, so I had just missed a few of my friends finish. I then sat there and waited for the awards with them, which took until 11.
The rain picked up and the temperature dropped, so there was to be no riding for me. I was contemplating going to the pool, but didn't want to leave the house, so I called it a day.
The good news was that results from the team's efforts over the weekend were awesome!
This week I'm going to begin ramping up some harder efforts. I've got the Kinetic Sprint Tri this Sunday, hard to believe tri season is here. Last year it was 3 weekends earlier, but the weather forecast is probably the same. It was 55 degrees and POURING last year, the worst rain I've ever competed in. If it does the same this year I'm going to be pretty ticked.
But first I have the Alumni Mile down in College Park this Thursday night. I'm excited to go back and see some of the old teammates. The race is part of a twilight/last chance meet, so the competition for the real events will be pretty good. I'm just hoping to break 5.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Chicken & Gravy
The way I move keys you can call me the piano mang - Jay Z
Last night I watched Natalee Holloway on Lifetime Movie Network. It was the story we all know, but told from the perspective of her mother. I'm a follower of this story, as well as Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson and Jon Benet. Anytime a pretty white person dies it is a sad day.
I have also come off the ledge a bit after Boston, so thanks for all of your concern. I only have a few cut marks on my arms, and the doctor says with some Shea's Cocoa Butter there shouldn't be any scars.
I had pretty much already forgotten about the race until yesterday, when I received my finisher's time card in the mail. Thanks for the reminder, BAA.
But onto bigger and better things, namely me + my bike + roads. That's right, triathlon season is upon us and it's finally a sport I seem to do much better in (unless the race is over 2h8m). I've spent the past few years building a little nest egg on the bike, and somehow live off the fat throughout the year. I've ridden my bike exactly 21 times this year. That's pretty sad. But I have 1157 miles, which isn't tremendously less than where I was this time last year.
The main differences are that I have only made one trip out to Frederick, compared with 4 last year. I also haven't been attending my Thursday Night Ride. Most of this was due to Boston, and bad weather, but even now I think it will be difficult for me to get up to Owings Mills on Thursdays this summer. It's about 20 miles from my house, which would mean even if I don't head all the way back to the shop, I'm still looking at 70 miles of riding on a Thursday. Not that I can't do it, I just wouldn't do it each week.
Anyway I'll worry about that later, I can ride hard on my own, I just like the socialization.
Back to this past weekend. I wound up taking 3 days completely off last week to let my body recover a little from the marathon. Hopped in the pool once, and ran about 2.5 miles on Sunday just to get home from where I was. The main objective of the weekend was to ride, and ride we did.
Saturday morning I was rolling up Fleet St by 7:15 to meet OJ and Benda at Meadowbrook. Their plan was to do the PA78 ride we have from TriSpeed, which makes it pretty close to 100 from Meadowbrook. Add the 18 miles for me to and from Meadowbrook and you've got a long day in the saddle. My previous longest rides are 106 mile efforts. I felt pretty decent in the morning, but knew it was going to be a long day.
Away we went from Mt. Washington, up to Timonium and then instead of stopping at the store to start their 9am ride, we just went on our way. There were a couple of parts early that Benda and OJ were picking it up, which I told them was fine - I just wasn't going to have the legs to do it. Finally we got up to Hampstead, and then onto Lineboro Rd. We stopped for water at Leone Springs, one of the highlights of the ride. Then it was back to the grind. We rolled into our next stop, Glen Rock PA, and were averaging 18.7 for the ride at mile 65. That's pretty decent.
From there, the ride gets a little challenging again. You pick up York Rd just north of the state line, and it's very hilly. Overall, you're descending into Hunt Valley, but some of the inclines are rough, and there's not a spot of shade. The worst is the climb up past Hereford HS. As I pedaled up that section I noticed the temperature read 91. Yikes.
I finally made it back to Timonium, and it was decision time. Ride uphill for a couple miles so I could benefit by going downhill for a while, or have a relatively flat ride but through more traffic. I opted for the hills. I made a stop just after 100 at Falls Road Running, and then made my way home. 115 miles, quite a long day. I was pleased that I didn't completely crash and burn, but I don't think I could have gone much quicker - my HR would have spiked and cause me to crumble. I did a great job with nutrition today, which was a highlight and undoubtedly helped me not feel like death the next day.
Sunday morning I headed down to watch a bunch of the team run at the Port to Fort 6k, where we went 1-2 on both the men's and women's side. We had a lot of successes today at various races, which was awesome because even at the early hour it was really warm. I ran home and prepared for my ride. OJ and I were meeting at 1:30 at Old Court Rd to ride to Frederick. It was HOT.
And windy - we had to ride into a pretty stiff headwind all the way out to Frederick. There was no shade and it's a primarily uphill ride, so what little downhills there were didn't offer any relief. It felt like a furnace. My feet were on fire. I was riding okay, but not great. My legs weren't cramping, nor did they feel like they would, but I just couldn't generate much power. I think we held 17.2 for the near 70 mile ride. At 5:15 we went past one thermometer that read 100. It could have been that hot.
After a spicy chicken sandwich and some french fries from Wendy's, we were on the road. OJ dropped me off in Fed Hill to attend Claire's bbq, and then I had to ride the 4 miles back home. Bleh.
Still, a 185 mile weekend is good at this time of year for me. The only casualty is my left knee is a little sore, which feels like it's been overused just a little. I should be good. I'm happy the efforts didn't kill me, so now with a little bit of riding under me I can get out for some harder efforts this coming weekend, ahead of racing season.
Last night I watched Natalee Holloway on Lifetime Movie Network. It was the story we all know, but told from the perspective of her mother. I'm a follower of this story, as well as Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson and Jon Benet. Anytime a pretty white person dies it is a sad day.
I have also come off the ledge a bit after Boston, so thanks for all of your concern. I only have a few cut marks on my arms, and the doctor says with some Shea's Cocoa Butter there shouldn't be any scars.
I had pretty much already forgotten about the race until yesterday, when I received my finisher's time card in the mail. Thanks for the reminder, BAA.
But onto bigger and better things, namely me + my bike + roads. That's right, triathlon season is upon us and it's finally a sport I seem to do much better in (unless the race is over 2h8m). I've spent the past few years building a little nest egg on the bike, and somehow live off the fat throughout the year. I've ridden my bike exactly 21 times this year. That's pretty sad. But I have 1157 miles, which isn't tremendously less than where I was this time last year.
The main differences are that I have only made one trip out to Frederick, compared with 4 last year. I also haven't been attending my Thursday Night Ride. Most of this was due to Boston, and bad weather, but even now I think it will be difficult for me to get up to Owings Mills on Thursdays this summer. It's about 20 miles from my house, which would mean even if I don't head all the way back to the shop, I'm still looking at 70 miles of riding on a Thursday. Not that I can't do it, I just wouldn't do it each week.
Anyway I'll worry about that later, I can ride hard on my own, I just like the socialization.
Back to this past weekend. I wound up taking 3 days completely off last week to let my body recover a little from the marathon. Hopped in the pool once, and ran about 2.5 miles on Sunday just to get home from where I was. The main objective of the weekend was to ride, and ride we did.
Saturday morning I was rolling up Fleet St by 7:15 to meet OJ and Benda at Meadowbrook. Their plan was to do the PA78 ride we have from TriSpeed, which makes it pretty close to 100 from Meadowbrook. Add the 18 miles for me to and from Meadowbrook and you've got a long day in the saddle. My previous longest rides are 106 mile efforts. I felt pretty decent in the morning, but knew it was going to be a long day.
Away we went from Mt. Washington, up to Timonium and then instead of stopping at the store to start their 9am ride, we just went on our way. There were a couple of parts early that Benda and OJ were picking it up, which I told them was fine - I just wasn't going to have the legs to do it. Finally we got up to Hampstead, and then onto Lineboro Rd. We stopped for water at Leone Springs, one of the highlights of the ride. Then it was back to the grind. We rolled into our next stop, Glen Rock PA, and were averaging 18.7 for the ride at mile 65. That's pretty decent.
From there, the ride gets a little challenging again. You pick up York Rd just north of the state line, and it's very hilly. Overall, you're descending into Hunt Valley, but some of the inclines are rough, and there's not a spot of shade. The worst is the climb up past Hereford HS. As I pedaled up that section I noticed the temperature read 91. Yikes.
I finally made it back to Timonium, and it was decision time. Ride uphill for a couple miles so I could benefit by going downhill for a while, or have a relatively flat ride but through more traffic. I opted for the hills. I made a stop just after 100 at Falls Road Running, and then made my way home. 115 miles, quite a long day. I was pleased that I didn't completely crash and burn, but I don't think I could have gone much quicker - my HR would have spiked and cause me to crumble. I did a great job with nutrition today, which was a highlight and undoubtedly helped me not feel like death the next day.
Sunday morning I headed down to watch a bunch of the team run at the Port to Fort 6k, where we went 1-2 on both the men's and women's side. We had a lot of successes today at various races, which was awesome because even at the early hour it was really warm. I ran home and prepared for my ride. OJ and I were meeting at 1:30 at Old Court Rd to ride to Frederick. It was HOT.
And windy - we had to ride into a pretty stiff headwind all the way out to Frederick. There was no shade and it's a primarily uphill ride, so what little downhills there were didn't offer any relief. It felt like a furnace. My feet were on fire. I was riding okay, but not great. My legs weren't cramping, nor did they feel like they would, but I just couldn't generate much power. I think we held 17.2 for the near 70 mile ride. At 5:15 we went past one thermometer that read 100. It could have been that hot.
After a spicy chicken sandwich and some french fries from Wendy's, we were on the road. OJ dropped me off in Fed Hill to attend Claire's bbq, and then I had to ride the 4 miles back home. Bleh.
Still, a 185 mile weekend is good at this time of year for me. The only casualty is my left knee is a little sore, which feels like it's been overused just a little. I should be good. I'm happy the efforts didn't kill me, so now with a little bit of riding under me I can get out for some harder efforts this coming weekend, ahead of racing season.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Things Could Always Be Worse
But I doubt it.
2009 has been a pretty shitty year for me, I just feel like I can't catch a break. I haven't felt good about any of my races since Columbia of last year, and it seems like in the races over 2 hours I'm getting crushed, which I don't get. I'm no stranger to extended efforts, but obviously I'm missing something.
When a bunch of my posse here all decided to do Boston, I was psyched. I thought it would be an amazing experience to get to run this storied race with all my friends, and after my terrible NYC race I was highly motivated to have a better showing at the world's greatest marathon. I ran more miles, did more long runs, even did a few workouts. The timing of the spring marathon is weird to me, as I tend to do very little in the winter and wait til spring to ramp up for tri season. I also tend to do more 10k-10mi races this time of year. While I would say that in general my preparation was better than it was leading up to last November, it was by no means tremendously structured.
Trying to not be all Debbie Downer, allow me to present things that were positives:
1) The success of others. According to Melissa, Ryan Hall was in 9th place when she saw him, and he rallied to finish 3rd. It was no London, but that's an amazing finish and promising for the future. Same goes for Kara Goucher, who is a beast and raced the shit out of Boston, only to fall back just at the end to finish 3rd. I love her.
Not to be outdone, some of my friends did great. PRs abound for Ben (2:32:35, 71st overall!), Zero (2:55, 7min PR), Collin, Spence, technically Arjun, Mary Bertram and my boy Eric (2:39:53). It softens the blow of a bad day for one or a couple when others can find success. The conditions were not terrible, but certainly not great. A strong headwind prevailed for the entire length of the course - one of the nuisances of a point-to-point, directional race.
2) Dick Hoyt and his son, Rick. If you don't know who these two are, you should be ashamed of yourself and Google them right now. Rick, now 46 years old, was born with severe cerebral palsey. Dick, his father, decided to start doing races with Rick, who is confined to a wheelchair. 30 years and a few heart attacks later, the pair are approaching their 1000th event. Along the way they have done every race from the 5k to the marathon, to the Ironman World Championships at Kona. Besides notching some 2:4x marathons, while pushing his son in a wheelchair, Dick pretty much does the unthinkable in the triathlon. Rick sits in a raft while Dick straps on a harness and pulls him through the swim. They then mount their bike, which fully outfitted weights 365 pounds. I get upset that my bike weighs nearly 16, plus my 165, and I've been known to empty water bottles to lighten the load going up baby hills. Then they go for a marathon run while Dick's arms do not move - they are stuck in an awkward position pushing the wheelchair.
And he never complains, because the joy on his son's face is immeasurable. He didn't set out to be an inspiration, but over the years he has become one, and to me he represents that old school Boston guy that never thought the Red Sox would win and played hockey with Bobby Orr without helmets. He's an ordinary guy who accomplishes something extraordinarily selfless for his son, and is probably the greatest unnatural athlete in the world. Needless to say, I can hardly watch the NBC Ironman coverage when they show him without tearing up, and when I passed him a few miles into the race on Monday (he starts early, his speed isn't what it once was), it was pretty emotional for me. Whenever I'm having a bad day I try to keep it in perspective.
3) I will continue to fail until I succeed. Seriously, my days aren't bad - they are colossel hatchet wounds. Things go so far beyond bad, it's inexplicable. Most people wouldn't come back for more, but I do. Nobody can empathize with this unless you've been there, so don't try. I don't need to hear about some 10k that you went out too hard in. This is not the same.
Some things I don't appreciate hearing:
1) Every race is a learning experience. Yeah, maybe after the first time a race goes bad. After 4 times, it's no longer a learning experience.
2) Great job! No, it wasn't a great job. I did terrible. You ain't got to lie, Craaaiig, just tell me how I did. If I did shitty and you don't know what to say, there's no need for words. Or you can just say sorry, bro.
3) At least you finished. What? Was there every any other option? I'm a winner, quitting is never an option in any race for me. If I'm not finishing, it's because I'm being taken out on a stretcher. This is probably a dangerous ideology, but whatever. Yeah, it really sucks to be that guy walking along the race course. It is physically painful and pretty embarrassing. But nothing is more painful or embarrassing than having a DNF next to your name.
The Actual Race
I've only raced one other marathon, so I only have that miserable experience to draw from, but it didn't stop me from making comparisons.
1) I like the NYC course better than Boston, and believe 100% that it is more difficult. To be fair, I like New York as a place better, but I'm not letting that bias interfere. The experience of running up and over the Verezzano Bridge is amazing, and how they can shut down New York for the better part of a day is really amazing. You get to run through more cool neighborhoods and see more "culture". I recall a section of Brooklyn being pretty loud, and of course 1st Ave and then Harlem. Then in Central Park it's great - if you aren't dead.
Boston was kind of a boring course, definitely the first half was kind of quiet, except for mile 7 and then, of course, Wellesley. There is no better reception than that of hordes of screaming chicks. The sound was deafening, and at this point I was probably in the top 400 people so there weren't many around - and it was mostly dudes. I've never been more excited to be anywhere in my life. It was everything I expected and more. The Boston College kids were really drunk, and the experience of the Newton hills and then 4-5 miles to go is great. The cheers are earsplittingly loud and it's great.
2) The race organization is top notch at both, but NYC gets the nod due to the accommodations they make for all runners. The expo is huge. The pre-race staging area is huge, and they have a million different languages being spoken for the international competitors. I suppose in fairness, NYC is a bigger international draw than Boston. There are a lot of people outside the US who don't really give a crap about the allure of Boston, but Boston also hates outsiders of any kind so I guess that's about right. On the course New York had more stops with gels. Boston only had one. The one thing I liked better about Boston was that following the race you only had to walk 1 mile as opposed to 2 at NY. Boston's pre-race staging area was weird. Very small, and pretty ho-hum. I suppose you shouldn't have a lot going on, but it was still surprising. And the start is very narrow. Granted my corral placed me pretty far back, but I was amazed at the number of people scattered across the road for the first 4ish miles of the race.
3) Logistically both are somewhat frustrating, but that's to be expected in a big city race. The hometown help was in my favor for NY, since I didn't have to stay in a hotel or ride a bus anywhere. Ben's NY experience was exactly that. All of our Boston experiences were that way, but I was pleased with the timing of it all, and they did have some happy volunteers (albeit they were Red Sox fans).
How Did My Race Go?
At first glance, the shitty time of 3:21 looks abysmal, and it is. But it was actually a better race than New York, if you can believe it. I was so psyched for this race; I felt my preparation was great and felt good on race morning. I had been feeling dead for the past few weeks but was feeling lively on race morning. Zero and I jogged to the start, outfitted in our sweet throwaway pants (wish I had pics) and my homemade armwarmers/gloves. I was able to go to the bathroom before the start, which was a huge plus. I didn't feel hungry like I did at the start of NY, and it felt "warm", at least while we were standing there. I gave a special shoutout to my boys Kris and Barf, who were not able to be there and I know they wanted to be and would have if they could have. Their absence made things a lot less fun.
The race started and it took me 2:30 to cross the start line. I wasn't concerned about it, and looked forward to the opportunity to go out a bit slower. There were so many people crowded onto the road and each of them was going frustratingly slow. I expected to see 7:00 or worse for the first mile, but was surprised when it read 6:40. That's about how fast I went out at NY, but obviously that was up the VNB while this was downhill. I began to weave in and out of traffic and popped miles of 5:59, 6:05, and 5:58 before finally telling myself to slow down. They are pretty easily miles and I was feeling better than I did at Cherry Blossom just two weeks ago so I thought I was doing fine.
The next couple of miles were 6:10, 6:09, 6:11, 6:13, 6:15, 6:14, 6:15 and then a 6:12 Wellesley mile, followed by a 6:15 to come through the half in 1:21:22. I felt okay at this point, but the pain was starting to seep in. I was right on what I had been hoping to come through at to run my goal of 2:45, but I knew the second half was going to prove tough. I felt if I could continue at 6:15 until mile 17, then limit my losses from 17-22 to 6:45s, and then drop back down to 6:30 or better, I would run in the 2:45 range.
Unfortunately my body had something else in store. Mile 14 was 6:17, but mile 15 was tougher - 6:30. I remember going up a little bridge at this point and the wind was really strong. I had been running for a while with this one guy, and we were briding the gaps to other groups. I wish I had just stayed with a group for a while instead of running through them, but such is racing. What I did appreciate was there were more people at this stage in the race than at most of the points for me at NY (before I blew up). Mile 16 was then 6:34, and then mile 17 was a bit of a bigger slowdown - 7:01.
The downhills were really tough on me. The difference between this meltdown and NY: at NY I was in trouble early because of the pace's effect on my aerobic system. Boston I was in trouble because my legs seized up. I suppose the positive to take away from this is that I'm aerobically sound. When I slowed down at NY I was in all sorts of trouble - breathing hard, complete body failure. At no point in the Boston race did I even feel tired.
Here's where the fun splits come: 8:15 (I stopped to take a dump just past the mile marker, so I'm actually pretty psyched that this mile was even that fast), 8:11, 8:00 to come through 20 in 2:11:31. If you think of running a 45min 10k, I would have pulled out a respectable time. But the misery continued...9:05, 8:43, 10:23, 11:43. There was a lot of walking. It got worse as it went, because I realized that a decent time was out of the question. I gave up the ghost and would walk as needed just to try and minimize the cramping. I couldn't take the crowd at this point, I was not in the mood for them. I stopped for a few minutes at 24 to talk to Matt Adami.
My last 2.2 miles were 14:59 and 14:49. The takeaways are that I made it a few more miles before the wheels fell off, but my finish was way worse. I don't know if I'll ever get this race right but I'll keep trying til I do. It's frustrating because I see everyone else having good races and can't figure out why I'm stuck in scrubville, but I take the D-Wade approach: knock me down 7 times I'll get up 8.
After the race I felt way worse than I did after NY, leg-wise. Aerobically, like I said, I was never at a point where I was breathing hard or couldn't speak. Thanks to Ben and Zero for helping me get my warm clothes on. We then had to drive the long trip back to Baltimore, in the middle of a torrential storm. It seemed hauntingly fitting for me and Arjun, considering our predicaments. I also got sunburned, which sucks.
Arjun and I are brothers of the same mission for misery. He and I had nearly identical races through 15 miles, with the exception of his first mile being 30sec faster than mine. He was at 1:20:57 at the half, so right on 25 seconds ahead of me. He managed to hold on a little better than I did, finishing in 2:57. It was 10 minutes faster than his miserable race at Baltimore 2007, but he was obviously not pleased. It's funny, we both said we could have run under 2:50 and, given what we did run, would have been great - but neither of us would have been pleased with it anyway.
We are racers, and we race the race. This can lead to greatness, or it can lead to supreme failure. As I say, I'll take failure 25 times if it means I am great just once. We both went in and had goals and did what we had to do to get them. I'm tired of hearing that I go out too fast. Shit, if anything I don't go out fast enough. My problem isn't that - everyone else I know went out faster than they came back, my problem is what's happening internally that's shutting my shit down HARD. Don't have much time to figure out what to do to fix it, but I have to do something.
What makes things tough, too, is the number of people calling, texting and emailing you congratulations when clearly they know you did shitty. I appreciate all the support but I shouldn't have to keep hearing "at least you finished". It's getting old. I had a conversation with my dad today and he obviously knows nothing about the sport, training or most of what I do, but the principles are the same. Basically saying go back to your core, the things that make you successful.
Now the negative me says that means stick to what you're good at, and clearly I'm not good at longer races. I'm also not very good at shorter ones, so that would leave me out of racing. But really it just means to rediscover how you got to where you are. I know I'm better at racing when my training has better balanced. I actually don't think I rode or swam enough this spring. In anticipation of this race I focused more on running. I think this left me tired and depleted, and I need to get back to my old style of training.
I also need something to lift the spirits. We all go through rough patches, but things rarely look up. The prospect of not having a job, a car and now a home are a little much, and all I was looking for was a race I could be proud of at Boston. This didn't happen, and now I'm in a tizzy because I have three weeks til the first tri of the season and am horribly unfit on my bike and in the water. Can I turn it around? Can I get my life back on course? Or is it time to move on?
Apologies for the long post, I am hoping nobody read down this far because that would have taken as long as it did for me to run my last two miles.
2009 has been a pretty shitty year for me, I just feel like I can't catch a break. I haven't felt good about any of my races since Columbia of last year, and it seems like in the races over 2 hours I'm getting crushed, which I don't get. I'm no stranger to extended efforts, but obviously I'm missing something.
When a bunch of my posse here all decided to do Boston, I was psyched. I thought it would be an amazing experience to get to run this storied race with all my friends, and after my terrible NYC race I was highly motivated to have a better showing at the world's greatest marathon. I ran more miles, did more long runs, even did a few workouts. The timing of the spring marathon is weird to me, as I tend to do very little in the winter and wait til spring to ramp up for tri season. I also tend to do more 10k-10mi races this time of year. While I would say that in general my preparation was better than it was leading up to last November, it was by no means tremendously structured.
Trying to not be all Debbie Downer, allow me to present things that were positives:
1) The success of others. According to Melissa, Ryan Hall was in 9th place when she saw him, and he rallied to finish 3rd. It was no London, but that's an amazing finish and promising for the future. Same goes for Kara Goucher, who is a beast and raced the shit out of Boston, only to fall back just at the end to finish 3rd. I love her.
Not to be outdone, some of my friends did great. PRs abound for Ben (2:32:35, 71st overall!), Zero (2:55, 7min PR), Collin, Spence, technically Arjun, Mary Bertram and my boy Eric (2:39:53). It softens the blow of a bad day for one or a couple when others can find success. The conditions were not terrible, but certainly not great. A strong headwind prevailed for the entire length of the course - one of the nuisances of a point-to-point, directional race.
2) Dick Hoyt and his son, Rick. If you don't know who these two are, you should be ashamed of yourself and Google them right now. Rick, now 46 years old, was born with severe cerebral palsey. Dick, his father, decided to start doing races with Rick, who is confined to a wheelchair. 30 years and a few heart attacks later, the pair are approaching their 1000th event. Along the way they have done every race from the 5k to the marathon, to the Ironman World Championships at Kona. Besides notching some 2:4x marathons, while pushing his son in a wheelchair, Dick pretty much does the unthinkable in the triathlon. Rick sits in a raft while Dick straps on a harness and pulls him through the swim. They then mount their bike, which fully outfitted weights 365 pounds. I get upset that my bike weighs nearly 16, plus my 165, and I've been known to empty water bottles to lighten the load going up baby hills. Then they go for a marathon run while Dick's arms do not move - they are stuck in an awkward position pushing the wheelchair.
And he never complains, because the joy on his son's face is immeasurable. He didn't set out to be an inspiration, but over the years he has become one, and to me he represents that old school Boston guy that never thought the Red Sox would win and played hockey with Bobby Orr without helmets. He's an ordinary guy who accomplishes something extraordinarily selfless for his son, and is probably the greatest unnatural athlete in the world. Needless to say, I can hardly watch the NBC Ironman coverage when they show him without tearing up, and when I passed him a few miles into the race on Monday (he starts early, his speed isn't what it once was), it was pretty emotional for me. Whenever I'm having a bad day I try to keep it in perspective.
3) I will continue to fail until I succeed. Seriously, my days aren't bad - they are colossel hatchet wounds. Things go so far beyond bad, it's inexplicable. Most people wouldn't come back for more, but I do. Nobody can empathize with this unless you've been there, so don't try. I don't need to hear about some 10k that you went out too hard in. This is not the same.
Some things I don't appreciate hearing:
1) Every race is a learning experience. Yeah, maybe after the first time a race goes bad. After 4 times, it's no longer a learning experience.
2) Great job! No, it wasn't a great job. I did terrible. You ain't got to lie, Craaaiig, just tell me how I did. If I did shitty and you don't know what to say, there's no need for words. Or you can just say sorry, bro.
3) At least you finished. What? Was there every any other option? I'm a winner, quitting is never an option in any race for me. If I'm not finishing, it's because I'm being taken out on a stretcher. This is probably a dangerous ideology, but whatever. Yeah, it really sucks to be that guy walking along the race course. It is physically painful and pretty embarrassing. But nothing is more painful or embarrassing than having a DNF next to your name.
The Actual Race
I've only raced one other marathon, so I only have that miserable experience to draw from, but it didn't stop me from making comparisons.
1) I like the NYC course better than Boston, and believe 100% that it is more difficult. To be fair, I like New York as a place better, but I'm not letting that bias interfere. The experience of running up and over the Verezzano Bridge is amazing, and how they can shut down New York for the better part of a day is really amazing. You get to run through more cool neighborhoods and see more "culture". I recall a section of Brooklyn being pretty loud, and of course 1st Ave and then Harlem. Then in Central Park it's great - if you aren't dead.
Boston was kind of a boring course, definitely the first half was kind of quiet, except for mile 7 and then, of course, Wellesley. There is no better reception than that of hordes of screaming chicks. The sound was deafening, and at this point I was probably in the top 400 people so there weren't many around - and it was mostly dudes. I've never been more excited to be anywhere in my life. It was everything I expected and more. The Boston College kids were really drunk, and the experience of the Newton hills and then 4-5 miles to go is great. The cheers are earsplittingly loud and it's great.
2) The race organization is top notch at both, but NYC gets the nod due to the accommodations they make for all runners. The expo is huge. The pre-race staging area is huge, and they have a million different languages being spoken for the international competitors. I suppose in fairness, NYC is a bigger international draw than Boston. There are a lot of people outside the US who don't really give a crap about the allure of Boston, but Boston also hates outsiders of any kind so I guess that's about right. On the course New York had more stops with gels. Boston only had one. The one thing I liked better about Boston was that following the race you only had to walk 1 mile as opposed to 2 at NY. Boston's pre-race staging area was weird. Very small, and pretty ho-hum. I suppose you shouldn't have a lot going on, but it was still surprising. And the start is very narrow. Granted my corral placed me pretty far back, but I was amazed at the number of people scattered across the road for the first 4ish miles of the race.
3) Logistically both are somewhat frustrating, but that's to be expected in a big city race. The hometown help was in my favor for NY, since I didn't have to stay in a hotel or ride a bus anywhere. Ben's NY experience was exactly that. All of our Boston experiences were that way, but I was pleased with the timing of it all, and they did have some happy volunteers (albeit they were Red Sox fans).
How Did My Race Go?
At first glance, the shitty time of 3:21 looks abysmal, and it is. But it was actually a better race than New York, if you can believe it. I was so psyched for this race; I felt my preparation was great and felt good on race morning. I had been feeling dead for the past few weeks but was feeling lively on race morning. Zero and I jogged to the start, outfitted in our sweet throwaway pants (wish I had pics) and my homemade armwarmers/gloves. I was able to go to the bathroom before the start, which was a huge plus. I didn't feel hungry like I did at the start of NY, and it felt "warm", at least while we were standing there. I gave a special shoutout to my boys Kris and Barf, who were not able to be there and I know they wanted to be and would have if they could have. Their absence made things a lot less fun.
The race started and it took me 2:30 to cross the start line. I wasn't concerned about it, and looked forward to the opportunity to go out a bit slower. There were so many people crowded onto the road and each of them was going frustratingly slow. I expected to see 7:00 or worse for the first mile, but was surprised when it read 6:40. That's about how fast I went out at NY, but obviously that was up the VNB while this was downhill. I began to weave in and out of traffic and popped miles of 5:59, 6:05, and 5:58 before finally telling myself to slow down. They are pretty easily miles and I was feeling better than I did at Cherry Blossom just two weeks ago so I thought I was doing fine.
The next couple of miles were 6:10, 6:09, 6:11, 6:13, 6:15, 6:14, 6:15 and then a 6:12 Wellesley mile, followed by a 6:15 to come through the half in 1:21:22. I felt okay at this point, but the pain was starting to seep in. I was right on what I had been hoping to come through at to run my goal of 2:45, but I knew the second half was going to prove tough. I felt if I could continue at 6:15 until mile 17, then limit my losses from 17-22 to 6:45s, and then drop back down to 6:30 or better, I would run in the 2:45 range.
Unfortunately my body had something else in store. Mile 14 was 6:17, but mile 15 was tougher - 6:30. I remember going up a little bridge at this point and the wind was really strong. I had been running for a while with this one guy, and we were briding the gaps to other groups. I wish I had just stayed with a group for a while instead of running through them, but such is racing. What I did appreciate was there were more people at this stage in the race than at most of the points for me at NY (before I blew up). Mile 16 was then 6:34, and then mile 17 was a bit of a bigger slowdown - 7:01.
The downhills were really tough on me. The difference between this meltdown and NY: at NY I was in trouble early because of the pace's effect on my aerobic system. Boston I was in trouble because my legs seized up. I suppose the positive to take away from this is that I'm aerobically sound. When I slowed down at NY I was in all sorts of trouble - breathing hard, complete body failure. At no point in the Boston race did I even feel tired.
Here's where the fun splits come: 8:15 (I stopped to take a dump just past the mile marker, so I'm actually pretty psyched that this mile was even that fast), 8:11, 8:00 to come through 20 in 2:11:31. If you think of running a 45min 10k, I would have pulled out a respectable time. But the misery continued...9:05, 8:43, 10:23, 11:43. There was a lot of walking. It got worse as it went, because I realized that a decent time was out of the question. I gave up the ghost and would walk as needed just to try and minimize the cramping. I couldn't take the crowd at this point, I was not in the mood for them. I stopped for a few minutes at 24 to talk to Matt Adami.
My last 2.2 miles were 14:59 and 14:49. The takeaways are that I made it a few more miles before the wheels fell off, but my finish was way worse. I don't know if I'll ever get this race right but I'll keep trying til I do. It's frustrating because I see everyone else having good races and can't figure out why I'm stuck in scrubville, but I take the D-Wade approach: knock me down 7 times I'll get up 8.
After the race I felt way worse than I did after NY, leg-wise. Aerobically, like I said, I was never at a point where I was breathing hard or couldn't speak. Thanks to Ben and Zero for helping me get my warm clothes on. We then had to drive the long trip back to Baltimore, in the middle of a torrential storm. It seemed hauntingly fitting for me and Arjun, considering our predicaments. I also got sunburned, which sucks.
Arjun and I are brothers of the same mission for misery. He and I had nearly identical races through 15 miles, with the exception of his first mile being 30sec faster than mine. He was at 1:20:57 at the half, so right on 25 seconds ahead of me. He managed to hold on a little better than I did, finishing in 2:57. It was 10 minutes faster than his miserable race at Baltimore 2007, but he was obviously not pleased. It's funny, we both said we could have run under 2:50 and, given what we did run, would have been great - but neither of us would have been pleased with it anyway.
We are racers, and we race the race. This can lead to greatness, or it can lead to supreme failure. As I say, I'll take failure 25 times if it means I am great just once. We both went in and had goals and did what we had to do to get them. I'm tired of hearing that I go out too fast. Shit, if anything I don't go out fast enough. My problem isn't that - everyone else I know went out faster than they came back, my problem is what's happening internally that's shutting my shit down HARD. Don't have much time to figure out what to do to fix it, but I have to do something.
What makes things tough, too, is the number of people calling, texting and emailing you congratulations when clearly they know you did shitty. I appreciate all the support but I shouldn't have to keep hearing "at least you finished". It's getting old. I had a conversation with my dad today and he obviously knows nothing about the sport, training or most of what I do, but the principles are the same. Basically saying go back to your core, the things that make you successful.
Now the negative me says that means stick to what you're good at, and clearly I'm not good at longer races. I'm also not very good at shorter ones, so that would leave me out of racing. But really it just means to rediscover how you got to where you are. I know I'm better at racing when my training has better balanced. I actually don't think I rode or swam enough this spring. In anticipation of this race I focused more on running. I think this left me tired and depleted, and I need to get back to my old style of training.
I also need something to lift the spirits. We all go through rough patches, but things rarely look up. The prospect of not having a job, a car and now a home are a little much, and all I was looking for was a race I could be proud of at Boston. This didn't happen, and now I'm in a tizzy because I have three weeks til the first tri of the season and am horribly unfit on my bike and in the water. Can I turn it around? Can I get my life back on course? Or is it time to move on?
Apologies for the long post, I am hoping nobody read down this far because that would have taken as long as it did for me to run my last two miles.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Popcorn
My shoes smell like popcorn.
After being on my feet ALL day, way more than I would have liked, I am finally back in the hotel. Zero and I are watching CSI: Miami right now, which is a sweet way to end the night. All told, it's been a busy couple of days. I had a wedding to attend on Friday night in NJ, which ended around 2:00am with me eating a Frostee from Wendy's. Saturday we had a few hour drive to Boston, and everyone split up to do their own thing. Ben, Spence and I headed to the North End for dinner.
I hate Boston.
I had to get that out of the way. I won't complain publicly on here, but it's just not my type of city. Buildings are pretty neat, I like the public park space and the history, but I'm not psyched on much else here.
Anyway today we were up reasonably early and headed into town. Did the expo, ran into a few friends working at some booths, and then went for a run. By the time that was done, I had to head to an Under Armour focus group/meeting thing. Props to Brennan for helping me find out where it was. I was expecting maybe 30 minutes. No, definitely 2 hours. Now I didn't have time to go back to the hotel before dinner, so I was just standing more at the expo and waited for Ben to arrive.
We got to the restaurant precisely at 6 for our reservation and good thing - North End was NUTS. As expected, of course. We ate and were in and out pretty quickly.
I had planned most of this trip very well, but neglected to pick up some throwaway clothes for race morning. It's supposed to be pretty chilly in the morning. Some consider it perfect marathon weather, but I'd always rather it be a little warm than a little cold. Zero was in the same situation so we found a TJ Maxx that was open til 8 and were successful in picking up some sweet gear.
Now it's time to hit the sack and get ready for a ridiculously early wakeup for a not-so-early race start time.
As Ben and I were chatting today, about adventures, as we often do, he told me a quote - I forget what it was exactly - but basically it said it can't be considered an adventure unless there's a little bit of insanity. I agree, and the marathon is definitely an adventure.
So peace be the journey to all my friends doing the race tomorrow, and just remember: this is definitely not Denny's.
After being on my feet ALL day, way more than I would have liked, I am finally back in the hotel. Zero and I are watching CSI: Miami right now, which is a sweet way to end the night. All told, it's been a busy couple of days. I had a wedding to attend on Friday night in NJ, which ended around 2:00am with me eating a Frostee from Wendy's. Saturday we had a few hour drive to Boston, and everyone split up to do their own thing. Ben, Spence and I headed to the North End for dinner.
I hate Boston.
I had to get that out of the way. I won't complain publicly on here, but it's just not my type of city. Buildings are pretty neat, I like the public park space and the history, but I'm not psyched on much else here.
Anyway today we were up reasonably early and headed into town. Did the expo, ran into a few friends working at some booths, and then went for a run. By the time that was done, I had to head to an Under Armour focus group/meeting thing. Props to Brennan for helping me find out where it was. I was expecting maybe 30 minutes. No, definitely 2 hours. Now I didn't have time to go back to the hotel before dinner, so I was just standing more at the expo and waited for Ben to arrive.
We got to the restaurant precisely at 6 for our reservation and good thing - North End was NUTS. As expected, of course. We ate and were in and out pretty quickly.
I had planned most of this trip very well, but neglected to pick up some throwaway clothes for race morning. It's supposed to be pretty chilly in the morning. Some consider it perfect marathon weather, but I'd always rather it be a little warm than a little cold. Zero was in the same situation so we found a TJ Maxx that was open til 8 and were successful in picking up some sweet gear.
Now it's time to hit the sack and get ready for a ridiculously early wakeup for a not-so-early race start time.
As Ben and I were chatting today, about adventures, as we often do, he told me a quote - I forget what it was exactly - but basically it said it can't be considered an adventure unless there's a little bit of insanity. I agree, and the marathon is definitely an adventure.
So peace be the journey to all my friends doing the race tomorrow, and just remember: this is definitely not Denny's.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Triangle
There are a few things in my life that I take great pride in being a fan of. Vanilla Coke. Pizza. Natalee Holloway. The Bermuda Triangle. The ability to watch shitty movies over and over again. One of these movies is a certain little made-for-TV flick by the name of The Triangle. It stars Dan Cortese, Luke Perry and Olivia D'abo, daughter of former Bond girl, Maryam D'abo (I may have flipped their first names, forgetting who is the elder).
The movie arrives on TV every so often, either on TBS or SciFi. I usually find out about its presence on the guide when I look up TRIathlon. Inevitably, it's on at some hour reserved for infomercials and sex chat lines (what??), therefore I set the DVR to record. It's a story of 3 friends who go on a fishing trip to the Bermuda Triangle, only to find out that Luke Perry tricked them. He's broke and is hoping to find a ship that vanished decades prior that would hold invaluable treasure.
As luck would have it, they get caught out in an eerie jaundiced fog and poof! - there's the ship. Since their radio equipment is fried, they board the ship in hopes of finding a working radio. While aboard, some weird shit starts happening, ultimately leading in the death of one of the friends, and then Luke Perry goes crazy and has to be put down also. Dan and Olivia make their way out and are able to get back on their tiny little boat. Then the ship starts moving toward them - very hastily - and they have to abandon. Everything goes down in a sea of flames, and the two find safety on a little raft. Eventually they're found, and apparently it's 7 years after their boat was reported missing. Great little movie. But don't take my word for it (Reading Rainbow).
The point is, in a very roundabout way, that Luke Perry, made famous for his role as Dylan on 90210, is cashed out and desperate and is willing to risk it all for that one glorious treasure. While I certainly don't feel cashed out and/or desperate, I am always willing to risk it all for glory. Last week I was starting to get a little nervous about my form. I felt like garbage and was worried that I had overshot the whole thing. I took Saturday off completely, which was my first day without training since November 30. 132 days of running, riding and swimming had taken its toll, and it was about time I had a break. I ran an easy 8 on Sunday, and then last night my legs felt much better.
Today I did my first, and probably last, track workout for a while. Ben had 4x1200 w/2:00 recovery on tap. I was hoping to start at 4:00 and work down to 3:50. The first one was 4:00, the second was 4:00. I didn't feel completely taxed, but I felt uncoordinated and awkward. The third I had to work to hit 4:00, and I slipped a little on the 2nd lap of the 4th and finished at 4:01. Wow, did not expect that. But hey, it could have been a lot worse, I feel like last week I would have struggled to run 85s.
All in all I'm feeling much more positive going into this weekend and starting to actually get excited. I'm less concerned going into this race than I was for NYC, which is good. I'm going to stoke the fire a little by finally watching Paris-Roubaix, the Hell of the North - probably the most difficult classic in cycling.
In other news, I found out recently that Kris and I, despite having no other television habits in common, both watch NBC's "Chuck." And in other OTHER news, I wrote a really sweet finale episode for the show, since it'll probably be canceled at the end of this season. I'll save that for another post. HOLY CRAP, Paris Roubaix is in crystal clear HD on VS. This is awesome. I've never seen anything like it. I just wish they could have put the 2003 TdF in HD.
The movie arrives on TV every so often, either on TBS or SciFi. I usually find out about its presence on the guide when I look up TRIathlon. Inevitably, it's on at some hour reserved for infomercials and sex chat lines (what??), therefore I set the DVR to record. It's a story of 3 friends who go on a fishing trip to the Bermuda Triangle, only to find out that Luke Perry tricked them. He's broke and is hoping to find a ship that vanished decades prior that would hold invaluable treasure.
As luck would have it, they get caught out in an eerie jaundiced fog and poof! - there's the ship. Since their radio equipment is fried, they board the ship in hopes of finding a working radio. While aboard, some weird shit starts happening, ultimately leading in the death of one of the friends, and then Luke Perry goes crazy and has to be put down also. Dan and Olivia make their way out and are able to get back on their tiny little boat. Then the ship starts moving toward them - very hastily - and they have to abandon. Everything goes down in a sea of flames, and the two find safety on a little raft. Eventually they're found, and apparently it's 7 years after their boat was reported missing. Great little movie. But don't take my word for it (Reading Rainbow).
The point is, in a very roundabout way, that Luke Perry, made famous for his role as Dylan on 90210, is cashed out and desperate and is willing to risk it all for that one glorious treasure. While I certainly don't feel cashed out and/or desperate, I am always willing to risk it all for glory. Last week I was starting to get a little nervous about my form. I felt like garbage and was worried that I had overshot the whole thing. I took Saturday off completely, which was my first day without training since November 30. 132 days of running, riding and swimming had taken its toll, and it was about time I had a break. I ran an easy 8 on Sunday, and then last night my legs felt much better.
Today I did my first, and probably last, track workout for a while. Ben had 4x1200 w/2:00 recovery on tap. I was hoping to start at 4:00 and work down to 3:50. The first one was 4:00, the second was 4:00. I didn't feel completely taxed, but I felt uncoordinated and awkward. The third I had to work to hit 4:00, and I slipped a little on the 2nd lap of the 4th and finished at 4:01. Wow, did not expect that. But hey, it could have been a lot worse, I feel like last week I would have struggled to run 85s.
All in all I'm feeling much more positive going into this weekend and starting to actually get excited. I'm less concerned going into this race than I was for NYC, which is good. I'm going to stoke the fire a little by finally watching Paris-Roubaix, the Hell of the North - probably the most difficult classic in cycling.
In other news, I found out recently that Kris and I, despite having no other television habits in common, both watch NBC's "Chuck." And in other OTHER news, I wrote a really sweet finale episode for the show, since it'll probably be canceled at the end of this season. I'll save that for another post. HOLY CRAP, Paris Roubaix is in crystal clear HD on VS. This is awesome. I've never seen anything like it. I just wish they could have put the 2003 TdF in HD.
Monday, April 13, 2009
F U, BOMF
I am a runner. As a runner, I run. I do not run for a cause. I do not do races in which raising money for a cause is part of the program. I would not join a Team In Training or other group which focuses on this aspect. It's not that I don't think it's worthwhile, but that's for a certain type of runner, and that's not me.
I like training and competing for me and only me. Call it selfish, I don't care. I make contributions to charities and will always lend a hand when I can.
But when you (not you, but "you") call me out because you think you're better than me, I have a serious problem with that and will no longer support your cause.
Back On My Feet is an organization that started in Philadelphia in the last few years. The backstory, in my biased opinion: a white girl decides that running around the mean streets of Philadelphia in the pre-dawn darkness by herself is a great idea. She then starts chatting with homeless guys and invites them to come run with her. The group was then formed in order to help those down and out "get back on their feet" by helping reincorporate them into society. Decent enough idea, not exactly sure how running accomplishes that but far be it from me to exclude anyone from the running community.
The news media starts to sweat this chick's nuts. A cute white girl helping poor, unfortunate homeless people - truly a feel good story. Unless she had been running by them and they murdered her. But that didn't happen.
Now the group comes to Baltimore, and a few months ago Arjun, Brennan, Dave Berdan and I attended their happy hour to kick off their efforts. It was a bunch of preppy looking white people, who looked like they were getting ready to be interviewed for grad school. And that's pretty much what it was. People who needed to feel better about themselves or boost their resumes for med school or grad school. One girl we met immediately spewed her resume on us, and was really annoying.
The premise of the group is that they meet early in the morning for approximately 1-2 miles of running, and I guess up in Philly some of the dudes got into half marathon shape. Pretty awesome. But I knew that, based on some of my other running commitments, I wouldn't be able to solidly say I could be there every time they run - and that somewhat defeats the purpose.
Another thing I noticed is that I didn't recognize any of the people at this happy hour. I have lived in Baltimore for almost 4 years and have been at or part of most every running event that has occurred (unless it was sponosred by Charm Shitty). I am terrible with names but good at remembering faces, and I had never seen any of these people. Brings the point of doing-it-for-the-resume back around.
I figured I would just leave it at that. I wouldn't do the group, but would promote it wherever I could. Until this week.
One of its members emailed Susan from FHR, one of the three of us who is in charge, and basically asked for our group's help. Keep in mind this was an unsolicited email. Susan did not reach out to him. He was asking for our help, to change our run or add runs in the morning, and also asked if we could help by bringing the homeless people into our jobs and introducing them to contacts, etc. Like fuck that shit, someone take ME into your job and introduce me, right?
Anyway, Susan forwards to me and James, and asks our opinion. I said to respond with a simple message, inviting them to come speak briefly at our group and certainly if anyone within the Fed Hill Run group wanted to do it, they could get more information on their own. It would not be something I would force upon the group.
She writes back to the guy, and probably could have worded it slightly differently, but she was stressing the importance of keeping it brief - citing that everyone in our group is coming to run and dressed to run, and since it's not warm lately and everyone has ADD to begin, it would have to be kept under a minute.
What the guy did in response was a bitch move, something a homo rapper would do - he copies in his "boss" (Anne Mahlum, the woman that started the group) and calls us out. HARD.
"Susan, I don't think this is a good fit, as it sounds like your group is pretty focused on running and doesn't really do charitable type efforts. If any individuals are interested, you can have them contact me or Anne Mahlum, who founded and runs the organization, for more information. When Cathy Strodel made the introduction, I mistakenly assumed your group had charitable inclinations. Sorry for any hassle."
FUCK YOU, first of all.
You don't think this is a good fit? Well you solicited us, not the other way around. We never said it was.
We're focused on running? No shit, we're a running group. And fuck you for thinking you're better than us. We do "charitable type efforts," just not your stupid shitty one.
Nobody is going to want more information because neither Susan, James nor myself will ever mention your group's name again.
This guy is enemy #1 on my list right now for being such a douchebag. I have been involved in many good things involving running and Baltimore in my time here, who the fuck do you think you are coming off talking to me and my group like that? Fed Hill Runners, which has met on Mondays at 6:30pm for nearly 5 years without ever missing a week, is a Baltimore running staple. We even invited people from YOUR group to introduce themselves at a meeting in January.
The difference is that BOMF is a group of social fucktards that wants to feel better about themselves by pretending to help others, even though the satisfaction really comes in feeling better about themselves. They show up to run with homeless people, then when the homeless people go back to being cold and hungry, they scurry off to their jobs and warm apartments.
Fed Hill Runners is a running group that runs. Where we can we promote worthy causes. If I let every person or group that emails me each week come talk to the group, I would lose credibility within the group and also deviate from my core business, which is running. I don't care if it makes me sound callous, that's just the truth.
So while I will not go on a rampage and badmouth this organization which I'm sure has helped one or two people, despite having what seems to be an army of med school rejects at its disposal, I will never again promote this. It was a stupid fucking idea in the first place and the girl is lucky she didn't end up dead in a gutter.
I like training and competing for me and only me. Call it selfish, I don't care. I make contributions to charities and will always lend a hand when I can.
But when you (not you, but "you") call me out because you think you're better than me, I have a serious problem with that and will no longer support your cause.
Back On My Feet is an organization that started in Philadelphia in the last few years. The backstory, in my biased opinion: a white girl decides that running around the mean streets of Philadelphia in the pre-dawn darkness by herself is a great idea. She then starts chatting with homeless guys and invites them to come run with her. The group was then formed in order to help those down and out "get back on their feet" by helping reincorporate them into society. Decent enough idea, not exactly sure how running accomplishes that but far be it from me to exclude anyone from the running community.
The news media starts to sweat this chick's nuts. A cute white girl helping poor, unfortunate homeless people - truly a feel good story. Unless she had been running by them and they murdered her. But that didn't happen.
Now the group comes to Baltimore, and a few months ago Arjun, Brennan, Dave Berdan and I attended their happy hour to kick off their efforts. It was a bunch of preppy looking white people, who looked like they were getting ready to be interviewed for grad school. And that's pretty much what it was. People who needed to feel better about themselves or boost their resumes for med school or grad school. One girl we met immediately spewed her resume on us, and was really annoying.
The premise of the group is that they meet early in the morning for approximately 1-2 miles of running, and I guess up in Philly some of the dudes got into half marathon shape. Pretty awesome. But I knew that, based on some of my other running commitments, I wouldn't be able to solidly say I could be there every time they run - and that somewhat defeats the purpose.
Another thing I noticed is that I didn't recognize any of the people at this happy hour. I have lived in Baltimore for almost 4 years and have been at or part of most every running event that has occurred (unless it was sponosred by Charm Shitty). I am terrible with names but good at remembering faces, and I had never seen any of these people. Brings the point of doing-it-for-the-resume back around.
I figured I would just leave it at that. I wouldn't do the group, but would promote it wherever I could. Until this week.
One of its members emailed Susan from FHR, one of the three of us who is in charge, and basically asked for our group's help. Keep in mind this was an unsolicited email. Susan did not reach out to him. He was asking for our help, to change our run or add runs in the morning, and also asked if we could help by bringing the homeless people into our jobs and introducing them to contacts, etc. Like fuck that shit, someone take ME into your job and introduce me, right?
Anyway, Susan forwards to me and James, and asks our opinion. I said to respond with a simple message, inviting them to come speak briefly at our group and certainly if anyone within the Fed Hill Run group wanted to do it, they could get more information on their own. It would not be something I would force upon the group.
She writes back to the guy, and probably could have worded it slightly differently, but she was stressing the importance of keeping it brief - citing that everyone in our group is coming to run and dressed to run, and since it's not warm lately and everyone has ADD to begin, it would have to be kept under a minute.
What the guy did in response was a bitch move, something a homo rapper would do - he copies in his "boss" (Anne Mahlum, the woman that started the group) and calls us out. HARD.
"Susan, I don't think this is a good fit, as it sounds like your group is pretty focused on running and doesn't really do charitable type efforts. If any individuals are interested, you can have them contact me or Anne Mahlum, who founded and runs the organization, for more information. When Cathy Strodel made the introduction, I mistakenly assumed your group had charitable inclinations. Sorry for any hassle."
FUCK YOU, first of all.
You don't think this is a good fit? Well you solicited us, not the other way around. We never said it was.
We're focused on running? No shit, we're a running group. And fuck you for thinking you're better than us. We do "charitable type efforts," just not your stupid shitty one.
Nobody is going to want more information because neither Susan, James nor myself will ever mention your group's name again.
This guy is enemy #1 on my list right now for being such a douchebag. I have been involved in many good things involving running and Baltimore in my time here, who the fuck do you think you are coming off talking to me and my group like that? Fed Hill Runners, which has met on Mondays at 6:30pm for nearly 5 years without ever missing a week, is a Baltimore running staple. We even invited people from YOUR group to introduce themselves at a meeting in January.
The difference is that BOMF is a group of social fucktards that wants to feel better about themselves by pretending to help others, even though the satisfaction really comes in feeling better about themselves. They show up to run with homeless people, then when the homeless people go back to being cold and hungry, they scurry off to their jobs and warm apartments.
Fed Hill Runners is a running group that runs. Where we can we promote worthy causes. If I let every person or group that emails me each week come talk to the group, I would lose credibility within the group and also deviate from my core business, which is running. I don't care if it makes me sound callous, that's just the truth.
So while I will not go on a rampage and badmouth this organization which I'm sure has helped one or two people, despite having what seems to be an army of med school rejects at its disposal, I will never again promote this. It was a stupid fucking idea in the first place and the girl is lucky she didn't end up dead in a gutter.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Hodgepodge
Sometimes I think about writing down some other stuff besides training, and then I forget/fall asleep on the couch while watching shitty movies on USA (tonight is Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson). Before I forget, I'm going to type some words.
Here's how an SMS interchange went with me and my little sister tonight:
RM: I just finished watching the worst season of Real World ever.
MM: Oh no! It's over?
RM: Yes tonight was the finale. Gay. Hope next season is better.
MM: Prob won't be, but we'll still prob watch it anyway.
RM: Yes. Yes we will. Because we're McGraths
I then tried to remember how many seasons of The Real World I've watched since I've lived in Maryland. I may be forgetting one or two, but I can remember Denver, Key West, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sydney and now Brooklyn. Each one is worse than the next, and this was the worst. I don't want to see boring people. I want to see sluts and fights and people hooking up. "America wants to see how Tron's livinnnn for the citaaaay."
I also like reading funny stories from the news. In fact, it's the only type of news I care for. Like the story about UCSD sending out an email to all 29,000 kids it did NOT accept for matriculation, informing them (mistakenly) of their acceptance. Ha. Ha.
And then I just logged on to the Baltimore Sun and found this article about a pornographic film being screened at UMD.
At first I thought maybe it would be some wartime porno where the nudity was heartwrenching. But NO, it's real hardcore porn. In fact, it's a movie I've been wanting to see ever since we heard about the original, Pirates. I had heard about this movie that had the largest budget of a porno of all time at $1 million. I saw posters for it in the windows of an adult video store in Philadelphia during the marathon. Bryan, Emily and I watched the trailer. It looked awesome. Great CGI, reasonably plausible storyline.
THEN they one-up themselves and make a sequel. Normally I'm not into sequels, but this has all the trappings of a great movie franchise. Oh, and it just topped the original's budget. At $10 million, it has become the highest ever budgeted hardcore porno.
I just wish the movie wasn't playing at midnight. If I didn't have to race on Sunday morning at 7:40, I'd totally go. $4 to see the movie is well worth it. But who am I kidding, I should see Pirates before I see the sequel. Or read the book, cause I hear the book is better.
And now for a little bit about my run tonight. Wednesday Night Run has seen a gradual decline in attendance for a few weeks. Most of this is because Ben and Arjun gave themselves an extra day for a few workouts (moving them from Tues to Weds) and same with Brennan, who is also now done for the season. Barf is out of shape, but trying to get back, MGP moved to Charles Village and some others have just disappeared. As I arrived at the Square at 5:59 tonight, I gave my usual minute past the church bell and then rolled. I was running pretty slow and even got stopped at Boston St, desperately looking back to see if anyone would come. I was hoping to see Ben, but alas, I did not.
I then decided, this being my 15th straight day of running (which I rarely do), that a little tempo run was in order. Not only do I need to start making my legs move quicker than they've been running, but I'm kind of tired of running this same run all the time. I picked up my pace to what I figured was about 6min/mile for approximately 4 miles til I reached the Taint.
I stopped and stretched, wondering if Barf might be making an appearance, and just as I was about to roll out, there he was. We ran pretty easy for the 1.75ish miles up Baltimore/Lombard to the Park, where we parted ways. I wanted to run the next 2.25ish miles hard again, through the Park, up to the Square and then continue uphill back to the crib. I figured it would be about 8 minutes to the Square and then I could drop under 6 for the mile home.
I had not been feeling well for most of the run, just out of synch, but as I began my next little tempo session I felt much better. I made it to the Square in 7:10 and turned the corner to run the mostly uphill mile home. I anticipated somewhere in the realm of 5:40, and was completely surprised as I passed the 3/4 mark in 3:55. The last quarter I was trying to get after it, and knocked out a 73 to finish in 5:08. I'm willing to say the mile could be marginally short, but by no more than a couple of seconds, and I've always counted the uphill nature of it to counteract those few seconds. Basically the effort was that of a 5:08.
I was pleasantly surprised, as it's the fastest I've ever finished any of my runs from the house, and I feel like it's got to be a good sign for the next couple of weeks.
I'm going to try and post a few more non-sequitur, non-running related things over the next few days, because they're funny, but here's one Alex sent me earlier. Just zoom in and enjoy. Particularly Ben and Kris, you'll appreciate it most. Note: the typos are obviously because I did not make the thing.
Here's how an SMS interchange went with me and my little sister tonight:
RM: I just finished watching the worst season of Real World ever.
MM: Oh no! It's over?
RM: Yes tonight was the finale. Gay. Hope next season is better.
MM: Prob won't be, but we'll still prob watch it anyway.
RM: Yes. Yes we will. Because we're McGraths
I then tried to remember how many seasons of The Real World I've watched since I've lived in Maryland. I may be forgetting one or two, but I can remember Denver, Key West, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sydney and now Brooklyn. Each one is worse than the next, and this was the worst. I don't want to see boring people. I want to see sluts and fights and people hooking up. "America wants to see how Tron's livinnnn for the citaaaay."
I also like reading funny stories from the news. In fact, it's the only type of news I care for. Like the story about UCSD sending out an email to all 29,000 kids it did NOT accept for matriculation, informing them (mistakenly) of their acceptance. Ha. Ha.
And then I just logged on to the Baltimore Sun and found this article about a pornographic film being screened at UMD.
At first I thought maybe it would be some wartime porno where the nudity was heartwrenching. But NO, it's real hardcore porn. In fact, it's a movie I've been wanting to see ever since we heard about the original, Pirates. I had heard about this movie that had the largest budget of a porno of all time at $1 million. I saw posters for it in the windows of an adult video store in Philadelphia during the marathon. Bryan, Emily and I watched the trailer. It looked awesome. Great CGI, reasonably plausible storyline.
THEN they one-up themselves and make a sequel. Normally I'm not into sequels, but this has all the trappings of a great movie franchise. Oh, and it just topped the original's budget. At $10 million, it has become the highest ever budgeted hardcore porno.
I just wish the movie wasn't playing at midnight. If I didn't have to race on Sunday morning at 7:40, I'd totally go. $4 to see the movie is well worth it. But who am I kidding, I should see Pirates before I see the sequel. Or read the book, cause I hear the book is better.
And now for a little bit about my run tonight. Wednesday Night Run has seen a gradual decline in attendance for a few weeks. Most of this is because Ben and Arjun gave themselves an extra day for a few workouts (moving them from Tues to Weds) and same with Brennan, who is also now done for the season. Barf is out of shape, but trying to get back, MGP moved to Charles Village and some others have just disappeared. As I arrived at the Square at 5:59 tonight, I gave my usual minute past the church bell and then rolled. I was running pretty slow and even got stopped at Boston St, desperately looking back to see if anyone would come. I was hoping to see Ben, but alas, I did not.
I then decided, this being my 15th straight day of running (which I rarely do), that a little tempo run was in order. Not only do I need to start making my legs move quicker than they've been running, but I'm kind of tired of running this same run all the time. I picked up my pace to what I figured was about 6min/mile for approximately 4 miles til I reached the Taint.
I stopped and stretched, wondering if Barf might be making an appearance, and just as I was about to roll out, there he was. We ran pretty easy for the 1.75ish miles up Baltimore/Lombard to the Park, where we parted ways. I wanted to run the next 2.25ish miles hard again, through the Park, up to the Square and then continue uphill back to the crib. I figured it would be about 8 minutes to the Square and then I could drop under 6 for the mile home.
I had not been feeling well for most of the run, just out of synch, but as I began my next little tempo session I felt much better. I made it to the Square in 7:10 and turned the corner to run the mostly uphill mile home. I anticipated somewhere in the realm of 5:40, and was completely surprised as I passed the 3/4 mark in 3:55. The last quarter I was trying to get after it, and knocked out a 73 to finish in 5:08. I'm willing to say the mile could be marginally short, but by no more than a couple of seconds, and I've always counted the uphill nature of it to counteract those few seconds. Basically the effort was that of a 5:08.
I was pleasantly surprised, as it's the fastest I've ever finished any of my runs from the house, and I feel like it's got to be a good sign for the next couple of weeks.
I'm going to try and post a few more non-sequitur, non-running related things over the next few days, because they're funny, but here's one Alex sent me earlier. Just zoom in and enjoy. Particularly Ben and Kris, you'll appreciate it most. Note: the typos are obviously because I did not make the thing.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Party's Still Bumpin
Back to back weeks of 77 miles, to me, have felt like weeks of 200 miles. Over the course of 12 days (Wed 3/18-Sun 3/29) I have run 147 miles. Until this year, I would have accepted that as a good month. This was 12 days. Needless to say, to unaccustomed legs, this was hard. I haven't ran this much since 2000 when I was only running. I even had stretches of 90 miles over 7 days, which was most certainly the most I've ever done in a week's time, and it was all in single runs. I remember running 85 miles in 6 days back in 2000, with 2-3 of the days doing a morning run.
The first week of 77 culminated with the 21 mile long run in DC followed by an easy 15 miles at Patapsco on Sunday. I was pretty tired at that point, but wanted to make this past week voluptuous. That's right, I said voluptuous. OJ had big plans last week to average 50 miles on the bike, 8 miles running and 5000m in the pool for the week. I wanted to latch on for as much as I could handle, but knowing how much I was really trying to run, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it all.
The statistics for the week show the following:
Swim: 8000m
Bike: 150 miles
Run: 77 miles
Weekly total was about 23.5 hours, and it is pretty balanced. Definitely the most miles I've ever run alongside any amount of bike/swim mileage.
The highlight of the week was the 22 mile long run on Sunday with Ben, Kris, Arjun and Zero. Ben has been following the Jack Daniels' formula for running things fast. As evidenced by his 1:10:36 last weekend in the half, it's working quite well. Arjun and Brennan have also been following the leader, like little Ass-Man shadows. It has similarly paid off for them. Further evidence that if you don't have a plan, GET ONE!
I scooped up the crew and we discovered that me, Ben and Arjun were all wearing the same shirt. Awesome. We had to have looked like idiots all strung out along the roads. The workout was a tough one, definitely the hardest I've ever done in my life. Asides from the marathon, this was the longest run I've ever done, and it took place on unforgiving, undulating roads, and mixed in close to 8 miles of tempo running.
After a 2ish mile warmup, we got into our set of 4x5:30 w/:60 rest. These were hard. Lots of long uphills. It was during this session that Arjun and I discovered we can't do a race like Boston anywhere near each other. Two completely different styles of running.
Tempo over, we retreated into our 10 miles easy. Which really wasn't even that easy, because we were either going UP, or down an equally long, punishing downhill. I felt great on the ups, but my body does not like downhill running. Might be a problem for a race like Boston. After a quick water stop at the gas station on Bellona, we made our way up that climb and then descended into Robert E. Lee Park. This is where I started to have some problems - namely a stitch underneath my rib cage. It was painful and run-limiting.
Stopped again at the Royal Farms on Falls Road, and after some Gatorade I felt a little better. NUTRITION. Gotta do a better job at that on a long, hard run like that. We then had to climb out of Mt. Washington, which is a long, long way, and Ben had increased the tempo a bit. As this served as our re-warmup into the second set of 4x5:30, I was pretty tired by the time we started those. And the way back is a little more downhill than up, so I struggled. It was the same part of the run where Ben and Brennan toasted me the last time we ran that way home.
2 of the tempo sections were on the road, and the last 2 were within the confines of the dreaded Druid Hills. I was moving, but not very fast, and it was all I could do to keep going. After a short cooldown, we were at or over 22 miles and I was wiped. We spent the rest of the day - which had become unexpectedly nice - people watching at Chipotle in the Harbor and watching some of the Elite 8 game at the ESPNZone.
Not that I've been training in the same way as the other guys for Boston, but this was my last big workout before the race. And even though I would have liked to have gotten in a little more on the bike and in the pool last week, I listened to my body and when it was tired, I tried to give it a little break. Now is the crucial time - recovery. I've got to recover well this week, as Sunday is the Cherry Blossom 10 miler.
It's a good opportunity to run fast, but more importantly I'm hoping it can give me some indication of a manageable pace at Boston in 3 weeks from today. At this point in the season I still train through races, because I have a few months until the important ones. Last year at Broad Street I ran 58:12. I'm shooting for 57:30 this weekend.
The first week of 77 culminated with the 21 mile long run in DC followed by an easy 15 miles at Patapsco on Sunday. I was pretty tired at that point, but wanted to make this past week voluptuous. That's right, I said voluptuous. OJ had big plans last week to average 50 miles on the bike, 8 miles running and 5000m in the pool for the week. I wanted to latch on for as much as I could handle, but knowing how much I was really trying to run, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it all.
The statistics for the week show the following:
Swim: 8000m
Bike: 150 miles
Run: 77 miles
Weekly total was about 23.5 hours, and it is pretty balanced. Definitely the most miles I've ever run alongside any amount of bike/swim mileage.
The highlight of the week was the 22 mile long run on Sunday with Ben, Kris, Arjun and Zero. Ben has been following the Jack Daniels' formula for running things fast. As evidenced by his 1:10:36 last weekend in the half, it's working quite well. Arjun and Brennan have also been following the leader, like little Ass-Man shadows. It has similarly paid off for them. Further evidence that if you don't have a plan, GET ONE!
I scooped up the crew and we discovered that me, Ben and Arjun were all wearing the same shirt. Awesome. We had to have looked like idiots all strung out along the roads. The workout was a tough one, definitely the hardest I've ever done in my life. Asides from the marathon, this was the longest run I've ever done, and it took place on unforgiving, undulating roads, and mixed in close to 8 miles of tempo running.
After a 2ish mile warmup, we got into our set of 4x5:30 w/:60 rest. These were hard. Lots of long uphills. It was during this session that Arjun and I discovered we can't do a race like Boston anywhere near each other. Two completely different styles of running.
Tempo over, we retreated into our 10 miles easy. Which really wasn't even that easy, because we were either going UP, or down an equally long, punishing downhill. I felt great on the ups, but my body does not like downhill running. Might be a problem for a race like Boston. After a quick water stop at the gas station on Bellona, we made our way up that climb and then descended into Robert E. Lee Park. This is where I started to have some problems - namely a stitch underneath my rib cage. It was painful and run-limiting.
Stopped again at the Royal Farms on Falls Road, and after some Gatorade I felt a little better. NUTRITION. Gotta do a better job at that on a long, hard run like that. We then had to climb out of Mt. Washington, which is a long, long way, and Ben had increased the tempo a bit. As this served as our re-warmup into the second set of 4x5:30, I was pretty tired by the time we started those. And the way back is a little more downhill than up, so I struggled. It was the same part of the run where Ben and Brennan toasted me the last time we ran that way home.
2 of the tempo sections were on the road, and the last 2 were within the confines of the dreaded Druid Hills. I was moving, but not very fast, and it was all I could do to keep going. After a short cooldown, we were at or over 22 miles and I was wiped. We spent the rest of the day - which had become unexpectedly nice - people watching at Chipotle in the Harbor and watching some of the Elite 8 game at the ESPNZone.
Not that I've been training in the same way as the other guys for Boston, but this was my last big workout before the race. And even though I would have liked to have gotten in a little more on the bike and in the pool last week, I listened to my body and when it was tired, I tried to give it a little break. Now is the crucial time - recovery. I've got to recover well this week, as Sunday is the Cherry Blossom 10 miler.
It's a good opportunity to run fast, but more importantly I'm hoping it can give me some indication of a manageable pace at Boston in 3 weeks from today. At this point in the season I still train through races, because I have a few months until the important ones. Last year at Broad Street I ran 58:12. I'm shooting for 57:30 this weekend.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Madness
Upon completion of my run today, I am at 77 miles for the week, with a staggering 70 of those coming since Wednesday. I figure by Tuesday of this week I may be near 88, which would probably be the most I've ever put in over any 7 day period. Of course, it's all cumulative so week-over-week and best-in-7 don't mean a whole lot.
As a result of the increased mileage, I didn't do a whole lot of anything else this week. I also really abused my body during the week, with way too many late nights and a St. Patrick's Day celebration that would have rivaled any of my alcoholic relatives' best efforts.
My legs did not feel good at all this week following last Sunday's 5k. I was considering running Ben's workout on Tuesday but knew it would have done me absolutely no good. Instead, I waited until Thursday to run with Justin. We were going to run at 11am so I could get back for the first tip-off, and while the morning was nice, right around 10:15 the weather took a turn for the worse. It was cold, windy and rainy, and I was not happy running the workout of 3x2 miles with 2:00 rest. My times were lackluster and I was disappointed, but very happily watched the 16 Tournament games on Thursday, including the Terps dismantling of Cal, and then went over to Ben's to watch Michigan take out Clemson.
I felt less-than-stellar on Friday, but muddled through a 10 miler before heading to DC with Arjun and Melissa. I was concerned with how bad my body felt, but figured I was just tired. We met up with Brennan and his family for a pre-race meal in DuPont Circle, and then me/Arj/Mel met up with my friends Kootman and Lauren to eat again and watch some of the Friday night Madness (and boy was I mad). A late night and an early wakeup made for a quiet Metro ride from Silver Spring to Chingachong-Chinatown, but once we got off the train we were made alert by the cold air (32ish degrees).
As much as I don't care for a lot of things about DC, I love running there. It stems from all the adventures we had in college, and I wouldn't mind running there every weekend. Riding, well, that's better up here, but I do love me some Beach Drive and Mormon/Ross repeats.
Arjun and I ran down to mile 3, met up with some friends and prepared to cheer for Ben and Brennan, who were running the National Half and Full, respectively. Ben came through and looked unreal (26:50 through 5) and Brennan didn't even seem to be running but rather floating along the course. We were able to see them pass at 3, 6, 10 and 12, and then at 14 the three of us (Arjun, Zero and me) jumped in with Brennan for a minute. His pace was absurd, and I could only handle a little over 4 miles of it before slowing.
The nice first half of the course is replaced with the utterly silent and boring 2nd half on the other side of the Anacostia. He was still killing it, and I had to put in another big effort to get to the finish line in time to see him after the 23rd mile. The result was Brennan negative splitting his first marathon (1:21:52-1:20:09) and finishing 17th in 2:42:01. That is unbelievable.
Meanwhile Ben had picked up 6th with a 1:10:36, another unbelievable race. Really good day down in DC.
Arjun and I then had to run back to Chinatown, so it was a 21 mile run for me, with about 6 miles of pretty decent tempo running. When we got back, and after I ate a ton of food, a few of us gathered to watch the miserable Terps game and then the Michigan game. Then we went out to celebrate Brennan (and his sister's) great days. Another 2am arrival at home meant I needed to sleep in, so I woke up at 8 today.
Met Kris, Justin and Kip at Patapsco to run, but didn't run with them. Instead I just did the most chill 15 miles of my life. It was really nice in the Park, so I didn't mind running slow, and really needed to do that.
I've got another week of volume lined up for this week, except I actually plan on riding and swimming (I only got in the pool once this week and didn't ride at all, boo). I will probably be around 80 miles running for the week, and then it will be time to start chilling out with the volume for a little bit.
The good news is that as of today I'm at about 650 miles of running for the year. My three months leading up to NYC Marathon last fall were 340 miles. By the time Boston comes around, I'll have close to twice as much under my legs, which I believe will help me during the race, and after as I try to recover and get my triathlon legs back. Last four weeks of running have been 44, 51, 60 and 77. One more high week and back down to 40s.
As a result of the increased mileage, I didn't do a whole lot of anything else this week. I also really abused my body during the week, with way too many late nights and a St. Patrick's Day celebration that would have rivaled any of my alcoholic relatives' best efforts.
My legs did not feel good at all this week following last Sunday's 5k. I was considering running Ben's workout on Tuesday but knew it would have done me absolutely no good. Instead, I waited until Thursday to run with Justin. We were going to run at 11am so I could get back for the first tip-off, and while the morning was nice, right around 10:15 the weather took a turn for the worse. It was cold, windy and rainy, and I was not happy running the workout of 3x2 miles with 2:00 rest. My times were lackluster and I was disappointed, but very happily watched the 16 Tournament games on Thursday, including the Terps dismantling of Cal, and then went over to Ben's to watch Michigan take out Clemson.
I felt less-than-stellar on Friday, but muddled through a 10 miler before heading to DC with Arjun and Melissa. I was concerned with how bad my body felt, but figured I was just tired. We met up with Brennan and his family for a pre-race meal in DuPont Circle, and then me/Arj/Mel met up with my friends Kootman and Lauren to eat again and watch some of the Friday night Madness (and boy was I mad). A late night and an early wakeup made for a quiet Metro ride from Silver Spring to Chingachong-Chinatown, but once we got off the train we were made alert by the cold air (32ish degrees).
As much as I don't care for a lot of things about DC, I love running there. It stems from all the adventures we had in college, and I wouldn't mind running there every weekend. Riding, well, that's better up here, but I do love me some Beach Drive and Mormon/Ross repeats.
Arjun and I ran down to mile 3, met up with some friends and prepared to cheer for Ben and Brennan, who were running the National Half and Full, respectively. Ben came through and looked unreal (26:50 through 5) and Brennan didn't even seem to be running but rather floating along the course. We were able to see them pass at 3, 6, 10 and 12, and then at 14 the three of us (Arjun, Zero and me) jumped in with Brennan for a minute. His pace was absurd, and I could only handle a little over 4 miles of it before slowing.
The nice first half of the course is replaced with the utterly silent and boring 2nd half on the other side of the Anacostia. He was still killing it, and I had to put in another big effort to get to the finish line in time to see him after the 23rd mile. The result was Brennan negative splitting his first marathon (1:21:52-1:20:09) and finishing 17th in 2:42:01. That is unbelievable.
Meanwhile Ben had picked up 6th with a 1:10:36, another unbelievable race. Really good day down in DC.
Arjun and I then had to run back to Chinatown, so it was a 21 mile run for me, with about 6 miles of pretty decent tempo running. When we got back, and after I ate a ton of food, a few of us gathered to watch the miserable Terps game and then the Michigan game. Then we went out to celebrate Brennan (and his sister's) great days. Another 2am arrival at home meant I needed to sleep in, so I woke up at 8 today.
Met Kris, Justin and Kip at Patapsco to run, but didn't run with them. Instead I just did the most chill 15 miles of my life. It was really nice in the Park, so I didn't mind running slow, and really needed to do that.
I've got another week of volume lined up for this week, except I actually plan on riding and swimming (I only got in the pool once this week and didn't ride at all, boo). I will probably be around 80 miles running for the week, and then it will be time to start chilling out with the volume for a little bit.
The good news is that as of today I'm at about 650 miles of running for the year. My three months leading up to NYC Marathon last fall were 340 miles. By the time Boston comes around, I'll have close to twice as much under my legs, which I believe will help me during the race, and after as I try to recover and get my triathlon legs back. Last four weeks of running have been 44, 51, 60 and 77. One more high week and back down to 40s.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
CRAM Session
When you are as naturally gifted and talented as I am, you don't have to study much.
In grammar school.
Then it starts to get a little more challenging. Well, not really until college. Some people seemingly float through while others struggle. I wasn't on either end of the spectrum, but fell somewhere in the middle. I was okay with it, and usually went about things with a chip on my shoulder as I typically do. Maryland didn't recognize + or - in your grade, so whether you had an 80 or an 89, you had a B. I quickly learned that I could do minimal work to get an 85, but the extra effort to get a 90 was more than I was willing to do to get the A. Crazy, I know, but in my current state of existence, my 3.0 GPA is the least of my concerns.
I'd always know when we had a test based on the attendance in the lecture hall. The 500 people that showed up to class on Day 1 would shrink to 250 by Week 2, and meanwhile I would just roll up with my Diamondback crossword puzzle and knock that out. Either that or write down rhymes for our rap battles that we had. Test day would come and the class population would balloon, and I'd see the #2 pencils and the little blue books being handed out and think "awww sheeeiiiiittt" - because I never studied. Shoot, half the time I didn't even own the book TO study.
I'd be the first one done and never reviewed my work for accuracy. I accepted whatever grade I got (except the time I got an F in a history class and went to the prof to find out the deal and his input error led to a B, phew!) and was pleased because I knew that whatever grade I received was what I knew. I hadn't crammed for it, which meant that I consistently did well on all exams, because I knew that much material. Others would forget it, then cram, do marginally better than I did, then forget it again.
I have a point to all of this - really.
The point is that we tend to feel pressured or rushed when exams come around, only exams these days are in the form of races. These judgment days expose our flaws and inadequacies, and since we're competitive people, we want to be the curvebreakers, not the kid scraping by. Most of these races are too long and painful to just get through them. Remember, the faster you go, the quicker you're done.
It's tough to realize sometimes that we have a finite amount of time each day, and to a further extent, a finite amount of available resources to expend over the course of the day. What complicates our training the most is feeling like you've "missed" something and need to make it up. There is no make-up exam, though, so whatever you bring with you to the test will determine how well you can do. If you didn't have the book, you're probably in trouble. Forget your calculator? Uh-oh. Your pencil also doesn't have an eraser, so you can't review your work.
If a weekend didn't turn out like you planned, oh well, it's over and you can't get it back. And cramming stuff into one day or evening, while fun and helpful (if done properly) doesn't serve much good if it means taking the next bunch of days off, or worse, getting hurt.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge proponent of big weeks and big weekends, like a stress overload, then recovering, but not at this time of year. It's still early and you're not really in shape to do it yet. And in the scheme of cumulative fitness, it's not as if your body resets on Mondays - so it probably doesn't matter if you get it in over three days or seven, but as I continue to say, a little bit everyday goes a long way.
With that in mind, I'm preparing for a big 10 day stretch from this Friday through next Sunday. OJ has issued a challenge of some ridiculous amount of training, and I think I'm at the right level of fitness and the right time of the training calendar to fit it in. Then I'll take some recovery leading up to Cherry Blossom, and make one last little push before bringing it down for Boston.
I also went out last night to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Man, did I drink quite a bit. I'm still on my Stoli O and Sprite kick, so I consumed about 10 of those, a shot of whiskey and then two pretzel dogs. God I love the Square.
In grammar school.
Then it starts to get a little more challenging. Well, not really until college. Some people seemingly float through while others struggle. I wasn't on either end of the spectrum, but fell somewhere in the middle. I was okay with it, and usually went about things with a chip on my shoulder as I typically do. Maryland didn't recognize + or - in your grade, so whether you had an 80 or an 89, you had a B. I quickly learned that I could do minimal work to get an 85, but the extra effort to get a 90 was more than I was willing to do to get the A. Crazy, I know, but in my current state of existence, my 3.0 GPA is the least of my concerns.
I'd always know when we had a test based on the attendance in the lecture hall. The 500 people that showed up to class on Day 1 would shrink to 250 by Week 2, and meanwhile I would just roll up with my Diamondback crossword puzzle and knock that out. Either that or write down rhymes for our rap battles that we had. Test day would come and the class population would balloon, and I'd see the #2 pencils and the little blue books being handed out and think "awww sheeeiiiiittt" - because I never studied. Shoot, half the time I didn't even own the book TO study.
I'd be the first one done and never reviewed my work for accuracy. I accepted whatever grade I got (except the time I got an F in a history class and went to the prof to find out the deal and his input error led to a B, phew!) and was pleased because I knew that whatever grade I received was what I knew. I hadn't crammed for it, which meant that I consistently did well on all exams, because I knew that much material. Others would forget it, then cram, do marginally better than I did, then forget it again.
I have a point to all of this - really.
The point is that we tend to feel pressured or rushed when exams come around, only exams these days are in the form of races. These judgment days expose our flaws and inadequacies, and since we're competitive people, we want to be the curvebreakers, not the kid scraping by. Most of these races are too long and painful to just get through them. Remember, the faster you go, the quicker you're done.
It's tough to realize sometimes that we have a finite amount of time each day, and to a further extent, a finite amount of available resources to expend over the course of the day. What complicates our training the most is feeling like you've "missed" something and need to make it up. There is no make-up exam, though, so whatever you bring with you to the test will determine how well you can do. If you didn't have the book, you're probably in trouble. Forget your calculator? Uh-oh. Your pencil also doesn't have an eraser, so you can't review your work.
If a weekend didn't turn out like you planned, oh well, it's over and you can't get it back. And cramming stuff into one day or evening, while fun and helpful (if done properly) doesn't serve much good if it means taking the next bunch of days off, or worse, getting hurt.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge proponent of big weeks and big weekends, like a stress overload, then recovering, but not at this time of year. It's still early and you're not really in shape to do it yet. And in the scheme of cumulative fitness, it's not as if your body resets on Mondays - so it probably doesn't matter if you get it in over three days or seven, but as I continue to say, a little bit everyday goes a long way.
With that in mind, I'm preparing for a big 10 day stretch from this Friday through next Sunday. OJ has issued a challenge of some ridiculous amount of training, and I think I'm at the right level of fitness and the right time of the training calendar to fit it in. Then I'll take some recovery leading up to Cherry Blossom, and make one last little push before bringing it down for Boston.
I also went out last night to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Man, did I drink quite a bit. I'm still on my Stoli O and Sprite kick, so I consumed about 10 of those, a shot of whiskey and then two pretzel dogs. God I love the Square.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
40oz to Freedom
Pretty routine week here. Started feeling under the weather on Wednesday, and as such I took most of the week out of the pool. Whenever I have a head cold I try and stay out of the chlorine.
I did manage to get out on the bike on Thursday, and I overestimated the temperature because halfway through the ride I was freezing. Completely my fault, I rode with just arm warmers - no leg warmers, no booties or toe warmers, short gloves. I was real cold, and was praying for hills just to stay warm. I made it to the Falls Road store and hung out inside for a few minutes to regain some heat before continuing on my way.
Friday was a good day in the trails with Kris, glad to see he's back on the road to recovery following his appendectomy. When we hit Gun Road, we put in a solid effort up it in 6:50. Just marginally quicker than last week but it felt a lot easier.
Most importantly, the Terps were playing themselves into the Tournament. There was a time when I never had to worry about whether the Terps would be playing or not, but these days you're never sure until they announce our name on Selection Sunday. More on that later, but they beat NC State on Thursday and then did work on Wake on Friday.
It's obviously my favorite time of year, and I go through a deep depression for like, ten, twelve minutes after the season's over.
Then comes the weekend. Saturday we were all doing the St. Patrick's Day Pub Run put on by Falls Road. This non-competitive, fun event has never been something I've been able to do so I was glad to get to do it this year. The turnout was amazing and it was a blast. A big group of us just jogging around town, early in the morning, and watching everyone get drunk - can't go wrong.
After that I had a 60 mile ride on tap with OJ, and by the time I made it back to the party, everyone was passed out. Ridiculous - it was only 4pm! I watched the Terps play valiantly against Duke, but it was a losing effort. Then we all went out for a little bit, and I had a sweet 4 mile walk home.
Sunday. Ugh. I woke up and heard rain so I opted to not ride. I slept for a while longer and then leisurely made my way down to Arjun's, where I did a 4.5 mile warmup for the Shamrock 5k. I wasn't feeling great, but as always, I try to put my best foot forward. Last year was a good day for me, finishing in 16:48 - the fastest time since college. The course is conducive to running very quick, but the early season nature still has everyone showing some rust.
Today it felt like I had been left out in the rain for months. The downhill start is very fast, but I was getting smoked by everyone and their mother. It finally settled down and I worked back up to a few groups, and could see I was going to be up against my boy Charles Powell III. Chuck is in his 40s but still gets after it. He beat me by 5 seconds at Club Challenge this year and I was determined to get him today.
The first mile I hit somewhere in 5:10, which was a little slower than last year. Unusual for me, because normally I love going out super quick and dying. The result was that I felt a little better in the 2nd mile, and hit mile 2 in 10:47. I think I hit 2 miles in 10:40 last year. Now the throngs of people are coming towards us, so I'm hearing quite a bit of shoutouts from the adoring fans. This helped me make sure I held off these two high school boners. I saw my squad chilling at the intersection of Light and Key, and I just tried to not slow down in the last 3/4. Hitting Pratt St was cool, I had a few seconds on Charles and was nowhere near the guy in front of me.
Crossed the line in 16:55 which became a 16:56, for 14th place. I was pleased. I barely avoided getting girled, as Melissa Tanner was coming up fast, getting the W in 17:03. My friend Chrissie was 2nd female in 17:10 - a huge PR for her as well. Best ladies' competition I've seen here in my years. On the dude's side it was a runaway victory for Jake Klim who also set a PR and got under the elusive 15 minute barrier. Most of my other friends ran great, too, including a 50 second PR for Zero, 2.5 minutes PR for Stanford (although his PR was soft) and post-collegiate PRs by Orla and Claire, and then another real PR for Jen. Pretty awesome day.
For the week, I ended with 60 miles, and a respectable 120+ miles on the bike. Just 3000m in the pool. Total was 16 hours. Meh, good enough.
I did manage to get out on the bike on Thursday, and I overestimated the temperature because halfway through the ride I was freezing. Completely my fault, I rode with just arm warmers - no leg warmers, no booties or toe warmers, short gloves. I was real cold, and was praying for hills just to stay warm. I made it to the Falls Road store and hung out inside for a few minutes to regain some heat before continuing on my way.
Friday was a good day in the trails with Kris, glad to see he's back on the road to recovery following his appendectomy. When we hit Gun Road, we put in a solid effort up it in 6:50. Just marginally quicker than last week but it felt a lot easier.
Most importantly, the Terps were playing themselves into the Tournament. There was a time when I never had to worry about whether the Terps would be playing or not, but these days you're never sure until they announce our name on Selection Sunday. More on that later, but they beat NC State on Thursday and then did work on Wake on Friday.
It's obviously my favorite time of year, and I go through a deep depression for like, ten, twelve minutes after the season's over.
Then comes the weekend. Saturday we were all doing the St. Patrick's Day Pub Run put on by Falls Road. This non-competitive, fun event has never been something I've been able to do so I was glad to get to do it this year. The turnout was amazing and it was a blast. A big group of us just jogging around town, early in the morning, and watching everyone get drunk - can't go wrong.
After that I had a 60 mile ride on tap with OJ, and by the time I made it back to the party, everyone was passed out. Ridiculous - it was only 4pm! I watched the Terps play valiantly against Duke, but it was a losing effort. Then we all went out for a little bit, and I had a sweet 4 mile walk home.
Sunday. Ugh. I woke up and heard rain so I opted to not ride. I slept for a while longer and then leisurely made my way down to Arjun's, where I did a 4.5 mile warmup for the Shamrock 5k. I wasn't feeling great, but as always, I try to put my best foot forward. Last year was a good day for me, finishing in 16:48 - the fastest time since college. The course is conducive to running very quick, but the early season nature still has everyone showing some rust.
Today it felt like I had been left out in the rain for months. The downhill start is very fast, but I was getting smoked by everyone and their mother. It finally settled down and I worked back up to a few groups, and could see I was going to be up against my boy Charles Powell III. Chuck is in his 40s but still gets after it. He beat me by 5 seconds at Club Challenge this year and I was determined to get him today.
The first mile I hit somewhere in 5:10, which was a little slower than last year. Unusual for me, because normally I love going out super quick and dying. The result was that I felt a little better in the 2nd mile, and hit mile 2 in 10:47. I think I hit 2 miles in 10:40 last year. Now the throngs of people are coming towards us, so I'm hearing quite a bit of shoutouts from the adoring fans. This helped me make sure I held off these two high school boners. I saw my squad chilling at the intersection of Light and Key, and I just tried to not slow down in the last 3/4. Hitting Pratt St was cool, I had a few seconds on Charles and was nowhere near the guy in front of me.
Crossed the line in 16:55 which became a 16:56, for 14th place. I was pleased. I barely avoided getting girled, as Melissa Tanner was coming up fast, getting the W in 17:03. My friend Chrissie was 2nd female in 17:10 - a huge PR for her as well. Best ladies' competition I've seen here in my years. On the dude's side it was a runaway victory for Jake Klim who also set a PR and got under the elusive 15 minute barrier. Most of my other friends ran great, too, including a 50 second PR for Zero, 2.5 minutes PR for Stanford (although his PR was soft) and post-collegiate PRs by Orla and Claire, and then another real PR for Jen. Pretty awesome day.
For the week, I ended with 60 miles, and a respectable 120+ miles on the bike. Just 3000m in the pool. Total was 16 hours. Meh, good enough.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Exact Opposite
Just read this interesting little coaching article on VeloNews. The first letter to the coach is the one in reference, and it preaches the exact opposite of what I normally do.
That's not to say it's wrong, just weird to hear people advocating that type of training.
At the same time, it's directed toward a different type of athlete - aimed more at the cyclist, and in particular, those with limited time. You can suffer through some short bike races with less fitness, and race yourself into shape. It's the "short-sale" way to get fit. When you race enough, it almost makes sense to do this rather than do hard workouts on no base, and then try to race.
The whole tone of the article uses a lot of the same words I used in my previous two posts, just in the exact opposite manner.
All I know is that in running and triathlon you stand to benefit from a solid base. More running, as demonstrated by everyone of us this year, does provide increased fitness.
That's not to say it's wrong, just weird to hear people advocating that type of training.
At the same time, it's directed toward a different type of athlete - aimed more at the cyclist, and in particular, those with limited time. You can suffer through some short bike races with less fitness, and race yourself into shape. It's the "short-sale" way to get fit. When you race enough, it almost makes sense to do this rather than do hard workouts on no base, and then try to race.
The whole tone of the article uses a lot of the same words I used in my previous two posts, just in the exact opposite manner.
All I know is that in running and triathlon you stand to benefit from a solid base. More running, as demonstrated by everyone of us this year, does provide increased fitness.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Death Pool 100
100 is a magic number. If you live to 99, no big deal. 100, however, kind of a big deal.
Run 99 miles in a week, you're a lazy bitch. But 100, whoa - baller.
$100 million is the magic number for box office gross to determine how good of a movie you were. 100 points by a single player in basketball game: it's only happened once, and that was a super-pro against basically a high school team. TV shows get psyched for their 100th episode, not 83rd (in fact, Death Pool 100 is the name of CSI: Miami's 100th episode).
And for el Presidente, it's all about the first 100 days in office.
What is our fixation on this number? It's just a number.
It's got a good aura I suppose, and we use it as a milestone for many of our most important achievements.
So when I realized last night that I had just passed 100 days since my "new training cycle" (started Dec 1 and haven't taken a day off since) I figured I should note the passing of the milestone and offer a report.
I've rambled about a lot lately, calling people out and making fun of others. This goes against my own reasons for training, and I've got to stop. I don't let what others do influence what I do. I have always found it interesting that people care so much about other people's training. I saw this a lot more when I used to train with Tri Guy Tommy. This, of course, was before the days of the interweb as a source of information to stalk others and know what they were doing at all times. Paper logs ruled the world, and the only way you knew about others' training was to talk to them directly, or indirectly through mutual friends.
OJ is a fan of stealth training. I am too, because I don't care for everybody to know everything I'm doing - it takes the fun out of competition. As a competitor, you have to assume that your rivals are at least as prepared as you, if not more, for any race. Trying to predict outcomes of events before they happen becomes plain tiresome.
The benefit I can see from following others' training is seeing what works for others and what doesn't. Again, as competitors, we all stand to learn from one another. What works for me won't necessarily work for you, and vice versa. I am a big fan of volume, not a big fan of super hard workouts or recovery. If I could point out my deficiencies, it would be that my workouts occasionally lack focus, and there are others who make more efficient use of their workout time.
You find what works for you and stick to it. For instance, I rarely ride hard. Ever. I put in little hard efforts, or ride in Frederick, which is hard even when it's easy. But I don't do long, sustained efforts, or any drills. Still, in triathlon, I'm one of the faster people on the bike. I rely on long rides and aerobic fitness, and think I also benefit from good cycling physiology (the only sport my body seems to have been "built" for).
My speed certainly isn't fixed, but I also realize that in running, there's only so much faster I can get. I still run close to my short distance PRs, on much less mileage and fewer workouts, but I know that I'll never break 16 in a 5k unless I take a different approach and focus on that for a while. When you're seeing stagnant results in triathlon, a single-sport focus can help bust the slump.
What have I learned in the last 100 days?
Slow and steady wins the race. Last year I raced early and often. In 2007 I think I had 3 or 4 events leading up to Columbia, and they were short. I then did about my usual at Columbia, which was not good. In 2008 I switched it up, raced more (I think Columbia was my 10th race) and did longer races, but also a few very short races. I used them as workouts, and had a great day at Columbia. But then I got complacent. I thought that because of my great race there, easier OLY distance races would be a piece of cake. They weren't. I was placing well, but not performing as well as I would have expected. I didn't feel tired, but I know I was not recovering. I raced way too much, way too frequently and clearly did not recover well. This led to another injury in August, and ultimately in a poor showing at NYC Marathon, which was supposed to have been my big 2008 event.
For 2009, the goals are even more ambitious. Longer races. Harder races. If I do too much now, I'll be done before the summer, and will not see the starting line on November 22nd. So while I've been doing more volume, it's been easier. I've only done one hard non-race effort and plan on keeping it that way for a little bit longer. The aerobic base period is a fine line. You can always race on aerobic fitness, and for some this time can last as little as a few weeks to as much as a few months. At some point, though, without more focused efforts and recovery, you'll just get stale. I'll start some workouts soon.
I've also learned that, for me, giving yourself an out is the beginning of the end. I don't think taking days off is a bad thing. I don't even think walking in a race is a bad thing (well, at least not anymore). But I know that once you've done those things, it is 100 times (100) easier to do it again. And then you think it's okay to drop out of races, and your world comes crumbling down. So until I really need a day off, I'm not taking one.
I've improved quite a bit over the last 100 days. I built up running 25 miles the first week of December to over 50 by the end of that month, and January was a great month for me of running. With the weather getting marginally better, or so we hope, I've also found my riding legs again. In the pool, I've made 4000m my standard of excellence for a workout, but still find myself being a little slow. I'm going to make a few adjustments and work on my speed for a little.
Where will the next 100 days take me?
The next 100 days are BUSY. I've still got a few weeks in March to work out some bigger volume, but I also need to slyly work in some efforts. Boston is less than 6 weeks away, and then tri season starts. Coming off a marathon, I'll have to pay close attention to recovery for the following two weeks. Then the trifecta of Kinetic, Columbia and Eagleman take top billing. Goals for each will be: remember how to race (Kinetic), improve/fine tune (Columbia) and not die (Eagleman).
Seriously though, with slots to Kona on the line at Eagleman (and now at Providence, which I plan on doing), I'll always get after it. It's too important to me not to, and if I didn't believe wholly that I could achieve it, I wouldn't even try. That's been the only goal for me since I learned about the event in 8th grade, and because life is unpredictable, I want to get there before something shifts.
Ultimately you just do what you do, and don't worry about what others say.
Let's have an adventure.
Run 99 miles in a week, you're a lazy bitch. But 100, whoa - baller.
$100 million is the magic number for box office gross to determine how good of a movie you were. 100 points by a single player in basketball game: it's only happened once, and that was a super-pro against basically a high school team. TV shows get psyched for their 100th episode, not 83rd (in fact, Death Pool 100 is the name of CSI: Miami's 100th episode).
And for el Presidente, it's all about the first 100 days in office.
What is our fixation on this number? It's just a number.
It's got a good aura I suppose, and we use it as a milestone for many of our most important achievements.
So when I realized last night that I had just passed 100 days since my "new training cycle" (started Dec 1 and haven't taken a day off since) I figured I should note the passing of the milestone and offer a report.
I've rambled about a lot lately, calling people out and making fun of others. This goes against my own reasons for training, and I've got to stop. I don't let what others do influence what I do. I have always found it interesting that people care so much about other people's training. I saw this a lot more when I used to train with Tri Guy Tommy. This, of course, was before the days of the interweb as a source of information to stalk others and know what they were doing at all times. Paper logs ruled the world, and the only way you knew about others' training was to talk to them directly, or indirectly through mutual friends.
OJ is a fan of stealth training. I am too, because I don't care for everybody to know everything I'm doing - it takes the fun out of competition. As a competitor, you have to assume that your rivals are at least as prepared as you, if not more, for any race. Trying to predict outcomes of events before they happen becomes plain tiresome.
The benefit I can see from following others' training is seeing what works for others and what doesn't. Again, as competitors, we all stand to learn from one another. What works for me won't necessarily work for you, and vice versa. I am a big fan of volume, not a big fan of super hard workouts or recovery. If I could point out my deficiencies, it would be that my workouts occasionally lack focus, and there are others who make more efficient use of their workout time.
You find what works for you and stick to it. For instance, I rarely ride hard. Ever. I put in little hard efforts, or ride in Frederick, which is hard even when it's easy. But I don't do long, sustained efforts, or any drills. Still, in triathlon, I'm one of the faster people on the bike. I rely on long rides and aerobic fitness, and think I also benefit from good cycling physiology (the only sport my body seems to have been "built" for).
My speed certainly isn't fixed, but I also realize that in running, there's only so much faster I can get. I still run close to my short distance PRs, on much less mileage and fewer workouts, but I know that I'll never break 16 in a 5k unless I take a different approach and focus on that for a while. When you're seeing stagnant results in triathlon, a single-sport focus can help bust the slump.
What have I learned in the last 100 days?
Slow and steady wins the race. Last year I raced early and often. In 2007 I think I had 3 or 4 events leading up to Columbia, and they were short. I then did about my usual at Columbia, which was not good. In 2008 I switched it up, raced more (I think Columbia was my 10th race) and did longer races, but also a few very short races. I used them as workouts, and had a great day at Columbia. But then I got complacent. I thought that because of my great race there, easier OLY distance races would be a piece of cake. They weren't. I was placing well, but not performing as well as I would have expected. I didn't feel tired, but I know I was not recovering. I raced way too much, way too frequently and clearly did not recover well. This led to another injury in August, and ultimately in a poor showing at NYC Marathon, which was supposed to have been my big 2008 event.
For 2009, the goals are even more ambitious. Longer races. Harder races. If I do too much now, I'll be done before the summer, and will not see the starting line on November 22nd. So while I've been doing more volume, it's been easier. I've only done one hard non-race effort and plan on keeping it that way for a little bit longer. The aerobic base period is a fine line. You can always race on aerobic fitness, and for some this time can last as little as a few weeks to as much as a few months. At some point, though, without more focused efforts and recovery, you'll just get stale. I'll start some workouts soon.
I've also learned that, for me, giving yourself an out is the beginning of the end. I don't think taking days off is a bad thing. I don't even think walking in a race is a bad thing (well, at least not anymore). But I know that once you've done those things, it is 100 times (100) easier to do it again. And then you think it's okay to drop out of races, and your world comes crumbling down. So until I really need a day off, I'm not taking one.
I've improved quite a bit over the last 100 days. I built up running 25 miles the first week of December to over 50 by the end of that month, and January was a great month for me of running. With the weather getting marginally better, or so we hope, I've also found my riding legs again. In the pool, I've made 4000m my standard of excellence for a workout, but still find myself being a little slow. I'm going to make a few adjustments and work on my speed for a little.
Where will the next 100 days take me?
The next 100 days are BUSY. I've still got a few weeks in March to work out some bigger volume, but I also need to slyly work in some efforts. Boston is less than 6 weeks away, and then tri season starts. Coming off a marathon, I'll have to pay close attention to recovery for the following two weeks. Then the trifecta of Kinetic, Columbia and Eagleman take top billing. Goals for each will be: remember how to race (Kinetic), improve/fine tune (Columbia) and not die (Eagleman).
Seriously though, with slots to Kona on the line at Eagleman (and now at Providence, which I plan on doing), I'll always get after it. It's too important to me not to, and if I didn't believe wholly that I could achieve it, I wouldn't even try. That's been the only goal for me since I learned about the event in 8th grade, and because life is unpredictable, I want to get there before something shifts.
Ultimately you just do what you do, and don't worry about what others say.
Let's have an adventure.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, March 09, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, March 02, 2009
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)
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)
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