Alcatraz

For the first time since 2006 I haven't signed up for the Alcatraz lottery.

It's really a fun race, believe me.  It's just a pain in the neck to get there and do it.

It's worth it.  I've done the race 4 times and had 3 decent races; one of which was actually pretty good.  I'd love to get in it and really train hard and kill the race with a sub 2:30 but really, that's not in the cards for me.  A 2:45 would be awesome, and really attainable but not super feasible.

Truth is that it's hard to arrange a trip like that.  It costs a lot to enter, travel, bring or rent a bike, and everything that goes with that.

So this year I didn't get in the lottery.  Still not sure how I feel about it but I don't think I'm really down about it.  Let you know in June when it's going on and I am here.

Really?

Seriously?

Seriously.

When's the last time I updated this blog?  May?  Two thousand what?

OK, that wasn't the last time I worked out but, again, seriously?

Alright, I am about 50 days out of the race with approx 30 days of training left.

Summary:

Swim:  Not where I need to be but I can get there in 3 weeks.  Not a big deal.  This has been a tough couple of weeks.  Not tough in the sense that I couldn't work out but tough in the sense that I've been screwing around drinking in Cabo for a week.  Just need to get 3 long swims in with 6 interval workouts and I'll do fine.

Ride:  Again, my long ride, like last year has been 85 miles.  If I can, over the next 3 weeks put in a good 110, 120, and 130 mile ride I'll be fine.  If not, then the ride will be a bit tough, assuming of course there aren't 30+ mph winds and hail like last year.  Tough but not impossible.  I'll take it easy and get through.

Run:  As usual (past 4 years anyway) this is my most trained sport.  I'll be fine.  If I can get off the bike feeling good I can look forward to 5 hours of hell to finish out a 13:30 IM.  If I don't feel good off the bike I can loof forward to a 6+ hour marathon.  Want to hear something funny?  A 6 hour marathon is much more fun than a 5 hour marathon.  It doesn't hurt to walk ever and you really can enjoy some good company.

So, I'll either have a 13 hour suffer fest ora 15 hour easy day.

Wish me luck.

1st Ride to Work in a Long Time

My office is a bit too far from home for me to ride right now so I drove to Matt's house and we went out for a some hills before I left and went down to work.

It's a commonly accepted fact that bicyclists treat red lights like stop signs and stop signs like yield signs.  There are some very good reasons for this not the least of which is because it's much safer for a bicyclist to maintain forward momentum.  Intersections are by their nature the most dangerous place to be in the street.  When a cyclist starts out his attention is on things like clipping in his pedals and not falling while all the cars around are accelerating.  The faster a cyclist clears an intersection the better for everyone.  That said, the rules of the road still apply.  If another vehicle reaches a 4 way stop first, it has the right of way.  No sane cyclist would pedal through a red light into busy cross traffic.

The reason I point this out is because this morning Matt and I stopped at a red light.  After verifying that the road was clear of cross traffic we proceeded.  All of a sudden a car behind us started blowing his horn.  I turned to see what he wanted and he pointed at the red light and screamed something that I couldn't hear.

Normally I would give this guy a piece of my mind but instead I just felt sorry for him.  I don't understand people who think they have to be the policeman for the world.  How crappy a life can this poor guy have that my actions, which didn't affect him in the slightest, caused such a reaction.  I wonder if his wife yells at him when he rolls through a stop sign or drives five mph over the speed limit.

Anyway, some interval hill work and then I was off to the office.  I've ridden past this sign for years but I stopped today to take a picture of it.  The world would be a better place if all traffic signs had one of these attached.

Laziness

I spend a lot of time on this blog complaining about how lazy I am.

If I were everybody else I would stop listening to me complain.

Spinning class

I went to a spin class last night for the first time.  Pretty cool.  If you are ever wondering what a normal bike workout is like, it's just like a spin class.  Maybe not quite as hard and you don't have to dig quite as deep in a spin class but it's similar.

On the plus side, even though I haven't ridden a whole heck a of lot (or at all) I feel pretty bike confident right now.  I've done enough long rides that rocky point and alcatraz shouldn't present much of a problem.  Need to run.  My swimming is coming along nicely.

Some fun quotes

There are two kinds of people, those who run and those who should.

You have a choice; you can either throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face.

I train because there are two ways to get fast and I haven't found the other.

No one gets faster without meeting their personal pain barrier straight on. No amount of junk miles, fun runs or affirmations are going to get you over the hill at the five mile mark in a 10k. However, what will pull you through is solid prep with hard hill runs and interval work.


Obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.



...One my way to the pool one evening, I noticed a young boy, maybe 10 or 11 years old, standing alone at home plate in an empty baseball field. His actions struck me as curious and I found myself so fascinated that I just sat in my car and watched.


He was standing at home plate swinging his arms around wildly. Suddenly, without warning, he bolted towards first base. As he rounded first base, he through his arms up and ran around the bases waving his fists above his head. At that moment, I knew what had happened. He had hit the winning home run, and was running the bases. His joy was the joy that many of us feel every time we put on our running shoes. It is a joy that is rooted not in PRs but resides deep in our imaginations.

Those of you at the front may be doers, and I applaud your accomplishments. But from the mid-pack back, we are dreamers living out a fantasy that is no less real that the boy in the ball park.

The lesson I learned, again, from this boy was that it is important to put action into your dreams. It wasn't enough for him to hit the winning home run in his mind. He needed his body to experience the real sensation of running the bases.

I am often asked by well meaning non-runners and some not so kind eagles and sparrows if I get bored running as slowly as I do. My answer is always; NO ! How can I be bored when I'm leading the Boston Marathon? How can I be bored when I am locked in mortal combat with the memory of a mean spirited elementary P.E. teacher. How can I be bored when I am running down that junior high bully? After a lifetime of running from, how can I be bored running to.

- John Bingham

Sally Meyerhoff

Sally Meyerhoff, a runner from Tempe, AZ was killed yesterday on her bike.  She was the fastest person I've ever met.  Very tragic.  I might have met her a couple times and she was really nice.  I just went on her blog and found an old quote that I like very much.

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for. It doesn’t interest me how old you are, I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine and still shout at the edges of a lake, river or mountain yes! It doesn’t interest me where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done for someone you love. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and truly like the company you keep in the empty moments in your life. Live more than your neighbors, unleash yourself upon the world and go places. Understand that this is not a dress rehearsal, this is it, your life. Face your fears and live your dreams, take it all in, yes, every chance you get, come close; and yes, by all means what ever you do, get it on film." - John Blais

Saturday ride, Sunday nothing so far...

I'm going to call it a sort of productive weekend. 

I'll start with today and my complaining.  I got up early and didn't do anything.  I have no idea why.  I'm starting to think that maybe I like the idea of being completely unprepared.

Saturday was a blast.  Very difficult.  Matt and I left from my house for Bartlett Lake. 

It's probably the most brutal ride in town here.  It's uphill to the turnoff to the lake and then 14 miles to the lake.  It's three miles down with, three up, two down, one up, and four down to the water. 

Tradition holds that you dip your front wheel in the lake before you turn around and do it in reverse.  Matt said some nice words and a heartfelt prayer for Doug.  10 months ago today.

I think the last time I did this ride was 2006 and I owned it.  Saturday was not likewise!  Matt has some very good early season form and I did OK getting down to the water and on the first 4 mile climb out I was able to pull for a while and hold Matt's wheel the rest but I fell behind on the final two climbs; embarrassingly so in the final 2 miles.  There was tail wind so I was able to barely hold his wheel as he pulled at 30 mph down Pima to Dynamite and home.

Great ride but I definitely need work even for this early in the season.

Feeling inspired

I can't exactly explain it but I feel like I've turned a corner.  I finished my two week pass at LA Fitness and actually got in the water 4 times and felt pretty good.  I'm going to join up this weekend. 

I didn't exactly impress myself this morning by not getting out of bed and running before work.  I'm going to get 6 in after work though.  Tomorrow we're doing a big Bartlett Lake ride.  Should be 75 miles or so with some major hill work.  I'm actually really excited to do it.  It's been a while since I think I felt excited about a ride.

Dropped a few pounds.  I'm at 164 right now.  Cutting my lunch down to one sandwich and some fruit.  I really want to try and figure out how to do a salad at work.  Going to ride a couple times to work next week, run a few times and swim a few times.  I'm building slowly on the swim.  I've hit the weights pretty religiously this year.  I don't think it's showing in my times yet but I really do feel stronger in the water.

Don't know about that 1/2 IM in Tempe in April.  I don't know if I am ready for it.  We'll see.

weight

Wow.  During a ride Saturday my buddy Ken said that I looked fat.

167 pounds this morning.

That's big for me.  In fact, according to myfatsecret.com it's the biggest I've been since November 2009.  In fact, other than a short time after my surgery a year ago I didn't break 160 last year.  Now I'm a big fat pig.

I've read that people that check their weight every day stay thinner.  I check my weight every day.  I creeped up to 162 or 163 shortly after the race in November and I've just steadilly kept it on.

Gotta get off my butt!

2011 Schedule

I hope that I'll be posting more often. 

I hope that I'll have something to post about.  This is a training blog after all.

Ideas for 2011:

April third there's a half iron in Tempe.  I can be ready for that I think.  That gives me approximately 7 weeks to prepare for it.  Can do if I work on it.  I just need to swim, ride, and run.  I can ride 56 miles.  I'd like to do it more comfortably though.  I ran last night.  I covered about 6.5 miles in an hour with a long warm up and 10 minute cool down.  Swim is the wild card (as usual).

April 30th is the Rocky Point Olympic triathlon.  No big deal but I would really like to do well in this.  If I use the half to train for this and really focus on speed for the second and third week in April I could do well.  Again, the swim will be important here.

June fifth is Alcatraz.  I'm very lucky (if you could call it such) that I keep getting drawn in this lottery.  A friend of mine Jason is doing it as well.  Gives me some incentive to train for it.  I would really like to rip apart last year's time even though I think I did quite well.  I faded on the last two miles last year.  If I could put together 8 - eight minute miles that would be awesome!

November 20 is Ironman.  I guess I won't be celebrating my 43rd birthday Saturday the 19th too extravagantly.  'Nuff said about that I guess.  My friends Don and Shaun are signed up for it as well so again, some incentive to keep training through the early fall this year unlike what happened last year on the bike.  There's no faking endurance.

More later.