Funk

170 on the scale.

Blew off swimming tonight and running yesterday.

Bleh.

Life’s been good, though. Haven’t been this happy at work in years. Boys are healthy and happy. Haven’t done anything to irk the wife in the last week or so. Plus, I’m still working off the high from the bike ride on Sunday. What a riot. Every other cyclist I saw waved back with smiles. Think we all felt like we were cheating or something, riding the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

I do need to get back on the wagon, though. It’s kind of funny – after a year of being skinnier than I’ve been in a few years, I can feel my body trying to pull the weight back on (hence the 3 lbs since the marathon). I think one of my failures in the past has been in failing to recognize when I started falling into weight gaining patterns.

SO, the question now is how to I nip this in the bud? How do I capitalize on the foundation I laid this year to meet the goals I set out a couple weeks ago? I need a PLAN. Hit the library today (have I mentioned how much I love Public Libraries?), picked up a couple of Tri books. I’m also reviewing a “Navy Seal” book I picked up a couple of years ago. My goal over the holiday is to lay out a plan to get me to the PRT in April. I’ll likely find an Olympic distance tri program to use as a base – quality mix of stuff I like.

Night, y’all.

22 on the bike

Sunday – church, dinner (being the traditional way to refer to the meal at mid-day, with supper being the evening meal), a little trip to Target to see if there was anything shiny that caught the kids or my eye, and to let the missus pick up actual useful things for the house. Jake was acting flakey – sure sign he needs a nap, Nate was falling asleep in the car on the way to the house, and the mercury was edging somewhere above 50. Threw the kids in bed, aired up the tires, found the shoes, and put the rubber side down on the pavement.

WOO HOO!

Weather was perfect – 55 when I passed the thermometer at the bank next to the VFW, chilly but not cold when the bike was at speed. Perfect reason to pedal harder!

Headed down River Road to downtown, swung east over the drawbridge, and continued all the way down to the beach at Stonington. The wind was really kicking at the point; there was a guy there contemplating wind surfing, my guess is that he was going to bag it. Not quite whitecaps, but windy.

Turned around and headed back towards the house. Took a wrong turn somewhere; ended up back on RT 1. Absolutely hammered to make it back to the house before 4. Pulled into the drive a bit after 3:45, threw on a swimsuit, grabbed the boys, and we made it to the Y for the last 15 minutes of Family Swim (showered and everything before I jumped in the pool, of course).

Leftover onion soup from the freezer – mmmm, good.

A&P had clementines for $3/box; clementines and kashi for breakfast…

YMCA

Pulled off the double workout today. I am pleased. First, though, huge thanks to Dianna, our RCWTOH, for sending the NYT Marathon section. Will scan soon, and will put in the “accomplishments” folder for eventual incorporation into the Bill Jankowski Presidential Library.

The grey has rolled in something fierce. Not the nastyness we had about the time of the Hartford Marathon, but the general winter grey, topped off with the sun setting sometime before I leave the office. You’d think it’d get me down, but frankly, I’m kind of enjoying the weather. There was a mist as I was leaving work today, and everything looked kind of clean and soft-focused under the sodium lights.

Standard fallback meal of grilled chicken and broccoli slaw; couple of games of ring-around-the-rosy with the boys; a little tag-team wrestling complete with the patented “over the shoulder” foot-tickler; bath; story; kisses; up for water, and I was headed to the Y by 8:00.

There was a SWEET Serotta cross bike tied up to the rack. Ran into the owner in the locker room; he didn’t mind talking bikes with a guy in the process of getting naked. He rides for Mystic Velo, picked up the bike for a song, and was well aware exactly how lucky he was to have it.

Didn’t want to knock myself out swimming. Started out with 5 easy laps breast. Then 5 of free with arms only.

On the next set of 5 free with arms and legs, I progressively pushed harder. Can’t say I went faster, ’cause I’ve got no empirical evidence to support that. But I completely went harder. Felt great. Smooth strokes. Quick overhead stroke and big stretch – get that effective hull length as long as I can. Just felt good.

Cooled down with 3 free easy, and 2 breast. 1,000 yards; plenty of time to shower and make it home for “My Name is Earl”. Love that show. I’m guessing that Earl is one of my high school classmates (metaphorically).

Inspiration for the night was the one high school guy there, obviously a good swimmer, teaching 3 other guys things like flip turns and kicking technique. Just the kids, no adults. Looked like they were having fun.

Checked out my shoes today for the first time since September. Somewhere along the last 4 months I’ve decided to become a heel striker again. I’m back to having heavy wear on the outside of both heels. Rats. I was so happy after my Jan-June shoes showed next to no wear on the heel, and equal wear on both sides of the ball. Fortunately, nothing is hurting, so I think it’s just a matter of concentrating while i build mileage again.

Lastly, I’d like to welcome one of my childhood friends and idols, Jeff, back from a little time to unwire. He may be wound a little tight, but he’s always had a confidence that I wish I had just a little chunk of. Plus, he lived right down the street from the cool radio station in town when we were kids. And it’s his birthday this weekend.

Quick one

Actually watched Monday Night Football last night. Great game. Is it just me, or is Madden beginning to go kind of senile? Regardless, I loved the commentary, and the game was pretty good. Made even better by the fact it was Dallas v. Philly, and I could play the opening monalogue off of the VU’s 1969 Live album with Lou Reed’s immortal “You ought to give people a chance. In football, anyway.”

The diet hasn’t kicked off too well, though – wings, cheese, and summer sausage. Melissa made the wings off of a recipie out of a magizine – I need to look it up since they were great. They were boiled and then baked, so some of the fat had melted off. Added a bit of Tabasco, but that’s just ’cause everything needs more ‘basco. Haven’t weighed myself since Friday – Jack is already at least two pounds down on me. Good on him.

Managed to run before work today. Nothing special, just 20 minutes or so on the exercise path at NUWC. 2.5 miles according to Gmaps Pedometer. But it felt good to be running again. Felt good to get it out of the way early.

Weather was on the warm edge of chilly, driven home by the low, grey clouds rolling by overhead, and the silent V’s of geese heading south. Might could have used gloves, but it wasn’t so cold that I needed to pull my hands inside my shirt. Legs were kind of confused – not quite sure if they wanted to run, or if they wanted to complain. I told them to shut up and go.

Tried to take it easy, but the Nano kicked out “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” off of Wilco’s “A Ghost is Born” album. Quickly dialed up the whole thing, and spent most of the run just completely lost in the music. Perfect album for running on a grey day in late fall. Perfect album for navel gazing, which I’ve been doing a bunch of lately.

Think I’ll try to get to the pool tonight for another slow swim, and then take tomorrow off. Either that, or wake up and try out the wife’s Kathy Smith Pilates tape. Need to work the core.

Say it is so

Via Velonews:

I do have a cycling/triathlete hero who can average 15 mph on her bike on a good day. Why my hero? She donated one of her kidneys to a total stranger. She, my friends, is a hero. Maybe not a cycling hero, but certainly a hero who cycles.

I’ve got a pair of fraternity brothers who share a set of kidneys. There is overwhelming inspiration and good in the world. It just doesn’t always pay well or come with sponsorships.

Embrace and extend, y’all.

Gauntlet

Jack’s got 17 lbs to lose; I’ve got 17 lbs to lose – it’s on.

I’d put my money on Jack though – 27K in 40 degree weather.

I, on the other hand, had pizza and ice cream.

We did pick up all the leaves in our yard, and quite a few that blew in from the neighbor’s yards. Anyone out there a landscape artist? I’d like to put something together in the yard (hedges and stuff, maybe a picket fence) that blows the leaves out of my yard into the woods behind the house. How cool would that be?

In any case, I didn’t run/bike/swim this weekend. Nope, just carried quite literally a ton of leaves into the woods and piled them up until they were over my head. I’m seriously thinking about heading out there with my sleeping bag this evening, just ’cause they’re still crunchy and fluffy. Melissa said she’d be worried about the fisher cat that’s allegedly stalking our neighborhood. Yep, Connecticut’s a wild place. Our first house featured a bald eagle that ate (I kid you not) two neighborhood cats.

Now all I need to do is to figure out how to get the ratzel-fratzel neighbors across the street to rake their yard. They’ve got lots of oaks; we don’t. There were more than a couple oak leaves in the pile.

Say it ain’t so…

Robert Heras’ popped positive for EPO in his last test in the Vuelta. He won a record fourth Vuelta a Espana in September.

I wouldn’t be especially bummed about this, except for the potential Lance fallout. Heras was a key player in the USPS juggernaut, and was supposedly tight with Armstrong prior to leaving to lead Liberty Seguros. Much like Tyler Hamilton…

Hamilton’s still appealing his positive test from late 2004; I’m starting to feel sympathetic for him again, by the by.

But what’s bugging me (am i buggin’ you? don’t mean ta bug ya. OK, Edge, play the blues!) is the whole proximity of this to Armstrong. Can you tell someone’s character by the company they keep? I hope not. But there’s the part of me that keeps wondering “Maybe LA figured it out. Maybe he was cheating for seven years, but managed to stay just far enough from the fire to avoid getting tagged…”

Again, I still want to believe in Armstrong. I want to believe…

Goals

So…

It’s only been three days since New York, and already my mind’s wondering what’s next. Remarkably, the body’s much happier after NYC than after Mystic Places. Somehow, I made the right decision and laid off instead of breaking myself. Goodness, can I actually be learning something?

In any case, I’m riding high on putting the marathons behind me, and with them, the corpse of my “failure to follow-through” demon. So now, it’s all a matter of setting goals and knocking them down, right? None of this is “official”, of course, but here are some of the things I’m thinking about:

1. Weight. I’m still toting around a little extra lard. To paraphrase the W.K.Kellogg Corporation, “On Billy J you can pinch an inch”. 167 today, right where I’ve been for six months. About 17 lbs above where I ought to be as a 5’7″ type. SO, I’ve got some work to do. At a pound a week, which is a sustainable weight loss, I could hit fighting weight in about 4 months, or February. Sweet. Call that one a goal.

2. Navy Physical Readiness Test. Next one ought to be in … April. Plenty of time. Did the run in 10 minutes last time. No marathon to train for this time. Let’s try to smoke the next one – 100 situps, 75 pushups, and the mile and a half in 9:00. Ambitious? Sure. Within my grasp? Heck yeah, especially if I’m not toting around the equivalent of two gallons of milk. My PRT at the end of OCS met this goal. Sure, we’re almost a dozen years down the road, but I’ve got more than 13 weeks to train, and am starting the training in much better shape than I started OCS. This one is do-able. Not quite the low-hanging fruit of the weight goal, but it’s there.

3. Bluff Point trail race: Broke an hour last year, which still amazes me. I’d like to break an hour again this year; I think if I concentrate, I might be able to break 55 minutes for 7.2 miles. That’s 7:45’s or so, but I’ve completely re-defined the amount of “discomfort” I can subject myself to. 55 minutes – tall order. I’m kind of iffy on this one.

4. Terramuggus Tri series. I’d like to do at least 3 of the 4 races this year, and ideally all of them. I also think I can break an hour. The swim – my worst event, was never more than 12 minutes. Leaving 48 minutes to bike 12 miles and run a 5K. A 20 minute 5K is reasonable for a thirty-something guy no longer lugging around a beer gut. Leaving 28 minutes for the 12 mile bike. Hmm – that’s a 24 MPH average speed. This one may be out of my league – have to shave about 25% off of my best of last year… How ’bout 1:10?

5. New Haven 20K. Hmm, that’s just four 5K’s. So, how ’bout seeing if I can break 90 minutes? Again, a pipe dream, but why not dream big this far in advance?

Thoughts on NYC

First, I’ve got to admit I love going to New York. The energy is intoxicating. I’m not the best traveled person around, but having been to at least Paris and Amsterdam outside the US, I’m pretty sure that New York is, indeed, the center of the Universe. It’s got a history as long and colorful as, say, Boston, but, unlike great historic cities, New York continues to evolve, paving over the past in favor of the future. Amazing.

OK – here’s the scoop: Continue reading Thoughts on NYC