Semi-Hiatus

Hey, y’all –

Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle, Too is going on semi-hiatus for about a month. Couple of cool projects at work, the perspective of a cool project at the church (set up a system to digitally capture sermons, burn CD’s instead of the cassettes we have now, and possibly put the service out as a podcast), a potentially cool pair of projects at the house (completing repairs on the kayak and building a new boat), some not-so-cool projects at the house (roof), and longer days with which to try to burn off some of this lingering belly flab necessitate that I spend a little less time with the RBF. I’m still running, will still race (some), but won’t have a ton of time to read and comment. I’ll likely keep posting, ’cause this works well as both an mental outlet and a log.

So, for the time being, I apologize in advance. Hope y’all have a great spring!

Weekend Wrap-up

So.

I was completely slack at the end of last week – didn’t do anything between Wednesday and Sunday. Not sure quite why, but such is life.

Sunday, the mother-in-law is in town (good thing). We all trundle down to the Y for the traditional Sunday swim/workout where the boys and I splash and the wife thrashes the elliptical trainer into submission. Per tradition, I waved goodbye in the parking lot, and started jogging home.

Wow. Terrible run. Legs weren’t in it, even though there were several days of rest, and I started having “discomfort” in my left foot. Which was comforting – it was my right leg that had issues with PF during the marathon, so at least the pilates stretching program is working.

I walked about a mile of the 5.5. Which is all right. The important part is that I was out there – calories don’t get burned sitting on my duff.

Monday was a much better day. At lunch, I set out to do an easy 30 minutes on the road. Ran out for 15 minutes, keeping the heart rate about 140 – low aerobic, burnin’ fat! At the turn, Wilco’s “At Least That’s What You Said” comes on, and I was complelled by the guitars and distortion to do about 3 minutes of max effort, ’cause the song’s that good. When I slowed down, I checked my pocket, and my badge had fallen out at some point.

So, on a sunny day in the 40’s (First run of 2006 in shorts!), I was forced to turn around and retrace my steps to see if I could find my badge. The guy about 2 minutes behind me had picked it up, so, life was good. Jogged gently, got my heart rate back down pretty quickly, and finished up in 35 minutes.

So I had that going for me.

In keeping with my plan to do an Olympic tri, I headed to the pool after bath time. 5 laps breast to stretch out. 10 laps free that felt incredible. 20 laps free that were pretty good, but started to get long at the end. Did some alternate side breathing here – wow, does that feel akward.

After that, I look, and two lanes over, the tall guy with the beard (featured here) looks over, and we exchange pleasantries while clothed this time.

I did another 10, the last 5 of which were absolutely great. Nice way to finish the actual work. 5 breast to stretch, and I’m out. 50 laps, 2500 yards.

80

Ever get a wild hair idea that won’t work its way out of your head?

In my case, I spent a short while today perusing the Connecticut racing calendar at HiTek Racing. I’ll post the way-long list of stuff I’m interested in later, when I’ve got time to look up races. But the idea that kept springing out at me as something I’d love to do was an Olympic Distance triathlon. What with the Turin games wrapping up last night with the best of all possible endings – a full out sprint to the line taken by an Italian underdog! Almost as satisfying on XC Skis as it is on bikes. Even if they were skating, which looks as unnatural to me (being raised on classical XC) as me riding a bike looks to the dog.

Olympic Distance is, in my mind, a lot like a half-marathon. Long enough to be interesting, but short enough not to leave a duffer like me broken and begging for mercy. 24 miles on the bike – hour, hour and a half depending on terrain. A 10K? After a marathon, even after a slack winter, 6 miles is a fun distance, and do-able even after an hour on the bike.

But the mile in the water – pshew. Swimming and me just don’t get along. Likely because I haven’t had any coaching, and am not likely to get any soon. I’d love to, but don’t want to sacrifice anything to get it. Yep, I’m darned to a future of mediocrity in sport, but that’s how I like it. If I can excel as a dad, and do better than most at the office(s), sport is an outlet, not a focus. (I’d rather spend the energy re-learning the piano. Not that there’s much progress there, either. But tonight is about triumph, not bleh, so disregard most of this paragraph)

Anyhoo … Continue reading 80

Public Apology

I’d like to take this space to issue a public apology to Al Trautwig. I took a cheap shot only because I figured VeloNews would publish me. I’m shallow, venal, and really like seeing my name on other people’s web sites. That, and because I endured one too many obvious comment on French culture over the past few Julys.

What I failed to grasp until watching the 50K XC final on the Olympics last night is that Al has happily made a career trying to make endurance racing understandable to non-endurance athletes. It’s not a leap a lot of programmers or talent have been willing to make.

Watching the 50K, Al’s appreciation for what the skiers were doing was apparent. And if listening to Al gets me more of the content that I want, then I’d listen to Al every Saturday and Sunday during the classics season happily. Doubly so if they keep him on with Bobbke.

So, here’s hoping that somehow my apology makes a difference. After the 50K, I’m still glad Al was in Turin. But for a completely different reason.

As a bonus, dig on today’s Frazz:
A bicycle race? In February? Up in Belgium? They don't sell enough waffles to afford a Jimmy Buffett album?
More on Het Volk.

Favorite Podcasts 23 Feb

Cory Doctorow’s Craphound.com – The (former) voice of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cory Doctorow’s a Canadian. His podcast is usually a read of one of his short stories or novellas. At his website, craphound.com, you can download any of his novels, published under creative commons licenses. He also is one of the folks behind boingboing (dangerous to productivity, and occasionally NSFW-not safe for work). He’s one of those crazy overproductive people. Check this podcast out if you like scifi.

Despair.com – bitterly funny. Dilbert without the kindness, or faith in humanity.

Escape Pod – More scifi. Occasionally flagged “Mature”, mostly rated R. Great shows in the archive already, including a wonderful one on Free Will, and another great one about exile in time. If you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can get URL’s for those.

Etherbeat – Ever since Wefunk dropped their podcast (bandwidth issues? Not sure…), I’ve been looking for a daily dose of funk. Etherbeat works. Not quite so well as WEFUNK, but good enough.

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me – Weekly News Quiz. Features semi-comics from left and right. You might recognize names such as Tom Bodette, from the Motel 6 commercials, or PJ O’Rourke, from such seminal works of right wing philosophy such as “Age and Guile beat Youth and Innocence” and “A Parliament of Whores” (which should be used as a standard high school civics text). This show alone is worth donating to your local NPR station. Even if you live outside of the US.

Slacker Astronomy – actual PHD astronomers trying to be funny, and giving out decent star advice all at the same time. Entertaining. Bonus star tip – check out Stellarium. It’s an open source and free (as in both speech and beer) planetarium application that runs on OS X, Linux, and another operating system by a little company out of somewhere near Seattle, I think. Great for cloudy (or cold) nights.

Lastly, TWIT – The week in tech. Alpha Geeks being geeks. Search the archives for the shows with Steve Wozniak. Priceless.

So? What are you listening to? I generally still run to music. The podcasts are great for the commute, when you cannot stand another minute of listening to the news.
(thanks to Brogan for sparking this thread)

Swim

Ever have one of those weeks where you just can’t get anything going? That’s what I’m up against right now. Somehow, I feel like I’m occasionally my own worst enemy – too wrapped up feeling sorry for myself to get anything done. Give me rope, and I’m tying metaphysical nooses.

It’s a terrible feeling when you realize that the biggest stumbling block remaining in your life, and the source of most of your stress, is yourself.

Scratch that. Not terrible. Liberating. All I need to do is figure out how to focus, and I’m Visa, baby – everywhere you want to be.

Let’s change that noose into a lasso. I’ve got goals to wrangle.

So.

Finally got back in the pool tonight for the first time in two weeks. The swimming felt good. Felt smooth. Felt strong.

‘Til I noticed the guy in the next lane, hardly moving, but going way, way, faster than me.

No, it shouldn’t bother me. Not in the slightest. ‘Cause I don’t swim enough to have reason for it to bother me. Plus, the whole “bothered” thing interferes with the whole “Wow, what a great swim” feeling.

And y’know what? it doesn’t bother me. ‘Cause one day, perhaps years from now, I’ll be smooth like that.

1500 yards. 35 minutes.

6 Miles

6 miles on the rail-trail again last night. I took it somewhat easy; still in “recovery” mode after donating blood on Saturday. Took the Forerunner this time to make sure that the folks who built the trail put in the mile markers right. Turns out, they’re pretty darn close. Close enough that I trust them over the Forerunner. (Stupid technology) The final verdict? 6.2 in 54 minutes. 8:45 average pace. I liked it. Not shabby for a lazy afternoon run.

No particular insight for today. But whadda ya want for nothing? Rubber biscuit? Want insight? Head over to jeff.

Oh, and Jeff? The Felt you’re looking at is well received in Bicycling’s annual buyer’s guide. So get on with it, already.

Actually, that brings up something that surprised me – I read through the bike porn for 2006 yesterday evening. Nothing really jumped up and grabbed me. Bicycling kind of summed it up for me – we’re living in a golden age of bikes right now. For just slightly north of a grand, you can get a ride that’ll do for about anything. For over $500, you can get a bike that’ll do for about everything less than Cat III racing. But there was nothing that really made me want to ditch the wife and kids and run down to the store with credit card in hand. I am seriously considering a mountain bike again, though. But I may build it piece by piece.

Winter Bil-lympics

No, not really. Mostly a photo-journey.

Gave blood Saturday. No guilt trip here. OK, a small one – since this is a light race season in most of the country, why not save up to three lives? Plus, it’s a calorie suck. I’d be more energetic about it, but the phlebotomist completely missed my vein this time. Had to dig about. Yuck. Plus, this may be it for me giving blood – they’re testing for an infection passed along by ticks now. And I cannot count the number of ticks I’ve pulled off of me.

OK, so Sunday – family swim, and I con the wife into driving the kiddos home while I run home (Isn’t it too cold? Naw, sweetie – I’ve got your love to keep me warm.) So here goes:

Mystic_YMCA

Continue reading Winter Bil-lympics

Meme ‘o’ riffic

From Deene:

1. Do you have good hand-eye coordination? Depends. 
2. Have you ever held a gun? Yes. For both work and leisure.
3. What do you think of toy guns? Kind of up-in-the-air about them. On one hand, they’re cool. On the other hand, we live in New England now, and they’re kind of socially unacceptable. On the third hand, I’ve got two boys, and have found, that, even without any actual toy guns in the house, there’s a lot of stuff that can stand in for guns. Actually, even without the house, there’s a lot of stuff that could be guns. Like fingers.
4. When is the last time you asked for forgiveness? Yesterday? Man. I dunno. Sorry.
5. Your favorite Aerosmith song: Walk this way, but the Run DMC version