Jitters

So I’m doing a Tri tomorrow. Not quite sure why, but I’m all worked up about it. Actually, I do know why I’m all worked up about it – the new junior engineer in the office is doing the race, too. She’s great – smart, attractive, picks up new stuff quick, etc, so on and so forth. And she’s 10 years younger than I am, which means that I’m getting stomped.

Not that I wouldn’t get stomped anyway; it’s just that this time I’m getting stomped by someone I know.

I don’t think it’d bug me as much if we’d run together before, but until lunch on Monday neither of us knew the other were into running, etc. And schedules being what they are – Monday she didn’t have shoes, Tuesday I had T-Ball, today was a wreck – it’s an unknown. So tomorrow’s the first time we’ll get to judge pace, etc, for each other, and I don’t want to seem rude. But I’m kind of nervous about the whole Tri thing anyway…

AND to top everything else off –

Congratulations! You have been accepted into the ING New York City Marathon 2005! We are so glad to have you joining us along with athletes from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Sunday, November 6, is less than five months away, and all of us are working hard to ensure that your race experience is the best ever. Coming off an incredible event in 2004, this is a challenge. But we love challenges, and you can expect a number of enhancements this fall, such as a smoother start for the fastest runners and dozens of great live bands along the course. We’ll keep you posted between now and then, but in the meantime bookmark http://www.ingnycmarathon.org, our official Web site, and visit it often for the latest news.

Crap.

Now this isn’t just an exercise in theory.

Back to the question at hand, though: Item the first – any cyclist knows that the absolute last thing that you want to do the day before a huge ride is major work on the bike. So what do I do tonight?
1) Swap wheelsets – this is kind of justified, I was checking spokes, and the winter set had one spoke where the nipple wasn’t even finger tight.
2) New brake pads. Again, somewhat justified – the old pads were original from 2001, and were pretty well glazed. Not squealing, but I didn’t feel a whole lot of grab on Sunday’s ride.
3) New cassette – finally threw on the 12-23 SRAM I’ve been staring at all spring.
4) New chain.
Yeah. But being smart got me fat. Jeff pointed that out a couple of days ago. I think that’s my new motto.

Let’s see – blew off Monday as a rest day after Sunday’s epic. Ran 4-ish Tuesday noon-ish after spending the morning sitting the baby (Hey Jon – remember, “the sitter’s not supposed to sit upon the baby”) while Missy and Jake checked out Kindergarden. Jake was kind of freaked out about the whole deal, but there’s a bunch of kids from his pre-school in his class. Half day, afternoon – jeeze, I wish I had his schedule. Then actually got to play at the t-ball practice. The dad-kid ratio was about 2/3, and there were only about 5 kids at the practice. So we let them actually try to hit, and tried to keep the other kids entertained by playing catch. Good times, except I have no gauge on how hard I throw any more.

OK, back to tossing and turning.

Suckers

Fixedgear notified me of Subaru’s Race to the Tour contest. Looks like they’re going to send me to France for a month of riding and writing. I can’t wait.

Sure, there’s the whole bit about actually getting selected for the gig, but as far as I can tell, that’s a mere technecality.

Here’s what I want to know – who is the poor guy who actually has to pour through the thousands of wanna be Henry James’ to do the choosing? How much bad prose can one person read?

Lunchtime – Mmmmmm, sweat

Ran at lunch for the first time in a while. Good stuff.

I’d kind of intended to take a rest day today, but with a beautiful, summer-like day in the offering, that wasn’t going to happen. So, being in the market anyway, and having my shoes still in the car, I picked up a new pair of shorts and t-shirt, found the socks I didn’t find yesterday, and ran the Navy Base again. Absolutely beautiful – nice sea breeze keeping everything cool. I kind of zig-zagged around to add mileage and hills, and ended up going for about 45 minutes – 5+ miles. I walked a little bit at the end, but HEY? such is life.

And I’ve been completely enamored with the RBF lately. Quality posts really keep me going. Warren’s getting the cycling jones. I’d offer him tips on immunizing himself, but, nah. It’ll be better when he’s part of the spandex’d and lycra’d cycling collective. All his base are belong to me. My only fear is that he’ll go for the tri bike, instead of drop bars. Speaking of tris, Wil (who most definately is not a guy) did her marathon last week in preparation for an Ironman later this year. Her rundown starts here with quite possibly the best bit of internal dialog I’ve read in a while. Wil also wins my vote for Best Consistient Use of Pictures in a Fitness Blog.

And all the good thoughts I can spare are headed down Houston way for Christian as he learns how to cope with mosquitoes that can carry off small children, and steel himself to head out and face the heat and humidity, even at oh-dark-thirty, when AC and good food are the other choice. ” I feel like twig boy out here, especially when I go to the pool.” I’m still at least 10 lbs above where I should be based on BMI, but 15 lbs ago, even I looked somewhat fit at the pool in Houston.

Finally, Fixedgear worked the US Pro Cycling championship last weekend. Great pictures, and an amazing race – US cyclists finished 1-2-3 for the first time in a while. AND, it’s an excuse not to feel bad about being beaten down by the heat. Out of the field of 200 guys who do outdoor cycling and stuff for a living, way less than half of them finished the race.

So, thanks to everyone.

Double your pleasure

Ran this afternoon – 35 minutes, I’m guessing somewhat over 4 miles. I did the circuit of the Newport Navy base, with a couple of side roads. The take-away is that what used to be challenging hills aren’t any more. This stuff works. Showered before heading back to work, and hit the old balance scale in the locker room – 169. Which isn’t bad, considering I haven’t been watching what I’ve been eating at all for about a month, and have been really, really stressed out about work. Now, all I need to do is drop the work stress, and I should be able to shed pounds.

Silly me had used the socks in my gym bag on Monday to ride. But, I knew I was not going far, so I went ahead and ran without socks. No blisters. I think a lot of that has to do with the work I’ve done on form – again, I haven’t tried any of them fancy-dan schemes, just concentrated on light foot strikes and not driving my heels. But it was nice to know that it’s working. I’m also noticing that my shoes aren’t wearing as fast as they used to. AND the wear pattern’s all under the ball of the foot, instead of the massive wear I used to get on the outside of each heel. Hmmmm….

I headed over to the Y to swim after a thrilling game of “Ants in your Pants” with Jake, baths, and story time (We’re doing “A Light in the Attic” – one of the ones tonight was about a pirate named Claude; I need to remember to send it to a co-worker of the same name). Did 1500m – 250 w/u breast, 2X500m freestyle sets, and 250 c/d breast. The swim didn’t feel great, but it didn’t feel bad considering I don’t think I’ve swam in about a month.

I think I’m skipping the Mystic River Valley Tri this weekend – no wetsuit, and I think the half mile swim might kill me after laying off the nautical stuff lately. But, I’m giving serious consideration to running the Terramuggus Tri series in Marlborough. I’ve got buy-in from the wife, and it doesn’t seem like a killer event – 400 yd lake swim, 12 mile bike, and a 5K run. It’s 6:30 on Thursdays, which means I need to leave work those days at 4 PM sharp, but it’s doable.

Marathon training starts in about two weeks for the Mystic Places Marathon. The NYRR plan builds weekend mileage really, really quickly, but at this point, I’m really pretty confident that I can do this. The Bluff Point race felt GOOD; my guess is that I could knock out a half at this point without too much pain afterwards. I entered the lottery for New York, but at this point, I’m focusing on Niantic, am going to run Niantic, and if my legs don’t fall off, may give New York a try two weeks later. Dumb? Yes, but being smart got me fat.

Which is why the short tri on Thursdays really kind of appeals to me – works out the competition jones, works out the multi-sport jones, but allows me to really focus on marathon which remains my focus for this year. Well, that and shedding another 20 lbs.

Fog

Giro Comments: I’m still finishing the tapes from last Saturday and Sunday –
1. Why does the OLN voice-over dude keep saying the “Mag-la-ia Rosa”? Do they have no-one in their production department who speaks Italian?
2. The climb over the Finestre (next to the last stage)- Dirt frickin’ roads! How cool is that? Real bike racing, not like that wussy race in France where every road is freshly paved.
3. The crowds at the top of Finestre – WOW! thousands of folks clinging to the top of the mountain, absolutely insane. Liggett summed it up perfectly “It’s like they’re clinging to the top of the world”.
4. With no disrespect to Mr. Armstrong intended, I am so looking forward to the post Lance era of cycling. This Giro has been absolutely tense, with DiLuca coming from nowhere to be a contender, Simoni being brilliant, and Paolo Salvodelli doing amazing things with a stripped-down Discovery Team.
5. Why is it that Italian cyclists have the best nicknames? “Il Falco” is about everything you could want in a nickname – the whole inspirational imagery (falcons), the Italian article (not just “Falcon”, but “the falcon”), and the echo of bad ’80’s euro-pop.
6. Bike racing beats the snot out of car racing because (given a few thousand dollars) you can run down to your local bike shop and pick up the exact same machine. No way could I pretend to be Michael Schumaker or Bobby LaBonte by heading down to the dealership.
7. The ProTour may be what kick starts cycling, especially with Armstrong’s retirement. Having more of the big guns at the big races grows interest, and being able to narrow down the field of names to follow makes the sport more accessible.
8. Am I the only one who laughs out loud when Phil and Paul do the promos for Bull Riding and bad reality TV?

in any case, if you haven’t watched it, Stage 19 was everything that could be imagined in a bike race – gorgeous day, fierce competition, breathtaking scenery, man vs. nature, the harmony of man and machine. Yeah. I’m going to get a lot of mileage out of this stage.

Salvodelli had a huge grin on the Sestriere, even though his lungs and legs had to be completely bursting. The beautiful thing about sport is that, even though my (slightly less than it used to be) fat butt will never even be worthy of carrying Salvodelli’s musette, I know exactly what was going through Salvodelli’s head, because the same thoughts were going through my mind today as I rode on Jamestown: “Wow, this is suffering. I cannot wait to get home and let the RBF know how I pulled through.”

Cool came back to New England today. It dawned clear and damp, then between 3 and 4, the fog rolled in off the North Atlantic. There was a pretty decent breeze blowing out of the south, so I parked at the soccer field and started out south, into the wind. The ride down to Beavertail was good – not really fast, but it was into the wind, challenging, and the legs felt decent.

Turning around and heading north, with the wind, was amazing. I had the spin going, had lungs that wouldn’t quit, and was loving life. Passed a guy going the other way just after the turn – he was on a decent bike, but looked like the 20 lbs ago version of me. Threw me a big wave, I waved back and flashed a bug-eating grin. I kind of wish I’d chased him down and told him about the RBF – he had the look– seemed like he had the general hunger to get fit, and he looked happy as a clam.

The three miles after the turn south back to the car were way too short. Bob Roll started screaming in my ear again, except this time he wasn’t telling me to ride it like I stole it. No, this time it was “Allez, Allez! Ride it like you own it!”

Completely flew back up the short hill and into the parking lot, bug-eating grin intact. The 20 or so miles was done in 70 or so minutes, so pacing is coming back. I really ought to switch wheels, or get another computer magnet, I’m actually interested in times again…

Hope everyone else is running and riding like they own the course…

The Look

First, true confessions: I did not successfully complete my penance, unless a bath counts. Ah, well, such is life.

Saturday – great day! I ran the base perimeter. Somehow, on Friday night, the heat finally got turned on for the summer, and what had been a cold spring, with temps rarely hitting the 60’s, turned into bluebird skies and 80 degree weather. Ouch. I did not know it at the time, but I was running into the same wall Jon did. He did better with it than me, but hey, that’s life.

The run started off great – good stride, good legs, good breathing over some decently tough hills up from the gym, behind the Sub School officer training building, past the commissary, and over to the beginning of the perimeter trail. About halfway up the last long hill (as opposed to the steep hills that were still coming up), I ended up stopping for a while as base security pulled one of their trucks out of the ditch on either side of the road. After stopping, I was kind of thrown for a loop and never really got the rhythm back on the tough section of the run. But, the birds sang, the breeze blew, and the sun beat down on my ears. Life was good.

When I got home, the wife and kids were hanging out in the yard. I was starved after my run, so we ate an early supper. Then, I was able to talk my lovely wife into riding the bikes into town for dessert! She’s always been a gym/machine kind of person – cars and roads kind of spook her, so her agreeing to do the 5 miles each way was a big step. Especially since it meant spending at least some time in public with helmet hair!

The ride into town was great – the birds were still shining, the breeze was still blowing, and the sun still beat down on our ears, though a cool evening breeze was coming off the sound. We were locking up the bikes in the public parking on the Groton side, just off Main Street, and Melissa said “You know, that wasn’t bad at all.” My heart went pitter-pat…

On the way back, we made the turn back into the neighborhood, headed up the first small hill, and the next thing I know, Melissa’s up out of the saddle, and heading up the hill. I about died laughing (and I really mean died – dragging 100 lbs of boys and trailer up a hill really tests the whole VO2MAX thing) after she gives me the look.

Yeah, you cycling fans know which look I’m talking about: the one that Lance gave Jan

For you non-cycling fans, let me expound.

The 2001 Tour was where Lance Armstrong became Lance Armstrong and not just some American who’d won the Tour. Yeah, there was the whole cancer survivor thing, but 1999 and 2000 had been kind of weak tours overall. Armstrong taking those two – sure, the kid’s got potential, but let’s get him some real competition, and he’ll crack.

In 2001, the whole cycling world was in pretty good shape (at least they thought), Armstrong hadn’t had the best off-season, and all the big guns were firing. Stage 10 ended atop l’Alpe d’Huez, a classic climb. After bluffing like he was struggling up an earlier mountain in the stage, Armstrong and Ullrich were in the second group on the final climb, trailing Joseba Beloki (who biffed hard on a downhill in a later tour, breaking his pelvis and essentially ending his career) and Christophe Moreau, who at one time was the next great French Cyclist, and has since been replaced at least twice).

About 10 minutes from the finish, Armstrong looks over his shoulder, locks eyes with the German, and then ups his cadence and pulls ahead without breaking more of a sweat. On TV, it couldn’t have been clearer – Armstrong was looking to see what Ullrich had left, and inviting him to bring it. When he launched, Armstrong was gone and Ullrich didn’t even flinch.

In short order, Lance passes the two leaders, and wins the stage, takes a commanding lead in the Tour, and leaves no doubt that Americans, for the entire 20th century and into the 21st, have always been better at kicking butt in France than anyone.

Until that point, Armstrong, while surely to be listed among the best riders to win the Tour, hadn’t really established himself as a Great. With the Look, with the win on l’Alpe, and several other wins that year, Armstrong pedaled into legend.

In any case, the same look is what my lovely wife flashed me as we hit the smaller of the two hills approaching the house. And, like Ullrich, all I could do was sit there and take it.

Plus, I didn’t want to ralph delicious Kona Ice Cream.

So, I ended up with 2 hours of running (give or take), an hour on the bike, and no swim, but an hour in the bath. Close enough.

The old Trek frame and fork is repainted. I took both down to bare metal with aircraft stripper, steel wool, and elbow grease. The “aircraft stripper” is extremely important – I tried some other stuff from WalMart, and it worked like crap. Picked up the right stuff at Auto Zone, and the paint peeled off. The other trick is to only work a small part at a time – coat a tube, wait 15 minutes, rub off the paint, and move to another tube. If you don’t the stripper and paint dry back to the frame, and more stripper is required to get it loose.

Washed both with water. Primed both with auto primer, and sealed with primer sealer. I painted the fork using auto paint – it looks GRATE! The frame I did with Rust-Oleum, since I wanted a nice, bright blue, and there wasn’t auto paint in that color. Doesn’t look bad, but not quite so flash as the fork. I’ve hung both of them in the space with the furnace – warm, low humidity, should cure the paint really well. Later this week, I’ll smooth out any runs with fine grain sandpaper, and put on auto clearcoat. Should work fine.

In the future, though, I’ll probably try one of those places that strip and do Imron for $150 + shipping – this has been a PITA.

Old Girlfriends

I had an introspective, depressing bit that I’d worked out on this evening’s run. But who the heck wants to start a weekend that way? (Maybe Monday). Then I had a flash of Brogan (self-improvement), but, due to obvious personal flaws (like an inability to write down and act on good ideas), that moment passed.

So, we’re stuck with an ode to old girlfriends and the sports with which I associate them. Possibly in verse. But first, a bit of admin:

Tonite’s run: slightly over 4 – looped the peninsula at Bluff Point clockwise. Beautiful, as always. Felt graceful over the rocks, which really put a huge and positive light on the evening. (The depressing bit was going to riff off of Jerry Jeff Walker’s song, “Backslider’s Wine” – if you haven’t listened to JJW, head right out and buy/steal/borrow “Viva Terlingua” which was recorded way back in the ’70’s – JJW was one of “the boys” as in “Waylon and Willie and the boys” – and captures a slice of Texas that I fear is largely gone forever; buried under a slide of strip malls and designer homes)

Best part of the run was rounding the corner where you get your first view of Fischer’s Island Sound – this is the “Bluff”. It’s only about 20-30′ off the water, but it was hazy tonight, and it reminded me of running along the cliffs on the North/West side of Point Loma in San Diego – just the sense of height over the water, and the illusion of flight.

Worst part of the run was intestinal trouble. Yeah. Nothing major, just the stuff that I get after a couple of days of not eating well or running. Running kind of shakes up and compacts everything, and my body says “Hey, if we’re going to be doing, like, exercise, I’m going to drop some of this off.” So, I ended up walking the last quarter mile to be safe…

Neat detail that I’d missed to this point was the Outhouses. Or “recycling toilets” as the signs inside call them. Anyhow, I was sitting on one of them, and marveling at how they didn’t have any of the standard outhouse stench. As a matter of fact, they smelled pretty darn fresh. Then I started noticing that there was airflow into the pothole, and heard some sort of whirring noise that I suppose I’d always associated with the transformer nearby, or maybe the airport. THEN, I remembered that both of the outhouses had solar panels on top of them. Using four years of engineering education, I deduced that these were high speed, low drag outhouses that used solar power to run a fan that sucked air out of the poop pit and up a chimney, replacing said air with the air in the house, which was continually refreshed by the drafty design of said house.

Great scott, I’ve still got insight to provide. First:

Strong disclaimer: The best part about sports is that they don’t get jealous if you continue to pursue old loves. My wife is not a jealous woman, nor does she need to be.

OK, here goes:

Cycling/Melissa
two loves of my life
effortless ease while together
maintenance on the side

Running/Sarah
On roads, on trails, or on track,
For passion we never lack,
When she’s in the mood,
I am her dude,
But commitment makes us both hack.

Swimming/Wesley
(I should write a sonnet – formal, rule bound, and difficult. Always at her place. But it’s late, and, as you all know, I’m often lazy.)

Anyone else up for bad poetry?