Wednesday Random 10 (day late)

Aping off of Randomduck, who’s got a great tradition of this.

  1. Beastie Boys, “Rhymin & Stealin”, Licensed to Ill
  2. Kanye West, “I’ll Fly Away”, The College Dropout
  3. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “On The Road”, Come Poop With Me
  4. Duke Ellington, “The New East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”, The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz
  5. John Coltrane, “My Favorite Things”, New Thing at Newport
  6. Jay-Z + The Beatles + DJ Danger Mouse, “Moment of Clarity”, The Grey Album
  7. Beck, “Hell Yes”, Guero
  8. Lex Zeppelin, “The Wanton Song”, Physical Graffiti
  9. Beastie Boys, “Paul Revere”, Licensed to Ill
  10. Delbert McClinton, “Mama’s Little Baby”

Mostly it’s thanks for reminding me what a great album Boy was.

Hellooo, Runna Neighbas

The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.

I’ve been having a good month, running-wise, if a little bit busy. Foregoing a fall marathon seems to have been the right decision; now to keep my weight moving down and my mileage moving up, and maybe spring will hold better news.

I’ve fallen in love with cycling again – key ride was the Bluff Point night ride that Mystic Cycle Center puts on – full moon and empty fire roads completely rocked. Though the monthly drill weekend rides have really, really helped, too.

Getting back to the pool has been good. This week’s triumph is two days in the pool, with more than 1000 yards each time. Little victories.

Lastly, Movember is coming. Go run.

Tips for Avoiding Plantar Fascists

Got a comment from the wayback machine – an old post I’d done for completerunning.com (Iochelli, I miss you, blogfather). Jenn is recovering from Plantar Fascitis, which is my old bugbear. Remembered pain got me to reply. I really hope that Jenn isn’t a bot. But, I’m putting my faith in mankind and the interwebs tonight, ’cause I’m feeling optimistic, and don’t want to lose the promise of Hope and Change…

Here’s what I said:

The good news is that my PF hasn’t reoccurred in about 2 years. I’m not sure if it’s dumb luck, but here’s what I’ve learned:
  • Make a gradual, gradual reintroduction to running. I blew it in 2007 – started training for the 2008 OKC Marathon and wasn’t consistient enough. I tried to jump back in, slacked off in the fall and winter, and tried to make up mileage the two months before the race. I ended up dropping from the whole to the half, and while I had a good race, it wasn’t enough.
  • STRETCH! From spring 2008 until spring 2009, I tried to maintain pretty consistent running volume, and added cross training. One thing I focused on was learning PF stretches, chief among them the toe stretch* and also the frozen water bottle **
  • Cross Train: Spring 2009 I did a half ironman triathlon, and my chief gripe was not doing enough bike/run bricks to get my back ready for the second transition. PF was not an issue.
I’m not a doctor or a physiologist, but what seems to have worked was:
  • Build training volume by adding non-running activities. If you want to sweat, get on a bike, or in the pool, or anything that doesn’t stress your tendons. Your heart and lungs build capacity much more quickly than connective tissue.
  • Be a 10% stickler: Start with about a mile or two a run, and be strict about the 10% rule – don’t increase weekly mileage more than 10% a week. IE, if you do 5 miles in a week, 6 might be too much for the next week.
  • Stretch: Do the stretches several times a day. I’d do them immediately upon waking up, at lunch, and before bed.
  • Avoid treadmills like the plague: I’ve got nothing scientific on this, but I did a lot of my winter 2007-2008 training on the treadmill. I’ve been studiously avoiding them since, and have been less injury prone. My theory is that the treadmill doesn’t listen to your body, it just starts carrying your foot straight back as soon as you make contact.
Good luck!
Bill
PPS – water bottle stretch:
  1. Go drink a drink in a plastic bottle.
  2. Save the bottle and cap.
  3. Fill the bottle most of the way up with water.
  4. Put it in the freezer.
  5. Let it freeze solid.
  6. Pull the bottle out of the freezer.
  7. Put on socks.
  8. Sit in a chair.
  9. Put the bottle under the arch of one foot, push down, and roll the bottle back and forth from toe to heel until your foot begins to feel really, really cold.
  10. Switch feet and repeat until bottle becomes squishy, or until feet become too cold.

Tour de Jank, Stage 9* – Burma Road Hill Repeats

The Ride

The * for today represents me kind of giving up. I’m still owing a cobbled stage for stage 3, and I missed yesterday – bad day at work, and just kind of unmotivated when I got home.

Today, though, I’m energized again – good talk with my supervisor, better talk with his boss, and some clarification of what the heck I’m supposed to be doing that’s largely in line with what I want to be doing. So a setback’s not always a setback, often it’s just a re-direction.

The ride today – Finally got out of the office and onto the roads for a lunchtime set of hill repeats. North on Burma Road, four times up the (very meager) hill at the north end of Burma, each time in an smaller cog starting from granny gear, and back down Burma at about 85% of sustainable effort. Legs felt great, I finished all 4 hill repeats, and I had a negative split on the ride back with an average speed over 20. It’s relatively flat on Burma, and I’m pretty sure there’s no elevation change, but I’ll check that when I pull the ride off of my Garmin tonight.

The Race

“Bastille Day, when 800 rebels stormed a guard of 100, lost 98 men, and freed just 7 prisoners, inspires French tactics to this day.” – @cyclocosm

It’s that time of year, again, where we look outside our borders to the second greatest event in sport, the Tour de France. 21~ish days of French countryside, podium girls, and skinny guys in tights with a tolerance for pain beyond anything an offensive lineman could ever comprehend.

This year’s race is already a classic – Lance Armstrong’s packed at least 8 years of bad luck into his last tour, we’ve seen one of the favorites from Luxembourg taken out by cobblestone roads in northern France that pre-date Napoleon, and the God of Thunder duke it out with a Manx man for the title of fastest man alive.

As the race enters its middle week, it’s just come out of the Alps and will be streaking across the middle of France towards the Pyrenees, where, in the 100th anniversary of the race’s first visit to these mountains, a Spaniard riding for a Kazakh team will try to stay ahead of a small guy from a small country.

And 10 days from now, the race will end with champagne on the Champs d’Elysees.

Next year? I think I’m buying a projector and stringing up a sheet between the trees in my backyard – watch the whole thing with a cold beer sitting in the backyard.

Tour de Jank, Stage 8 – Old Mystic to Ice Cream

The Ride

Who cares? This is why we did 10 miles on the trail-a-bike:

Blackberry

IMG_0005

The Tour

So, it turns out that Lance Armstrong is human, after all – more than 10 minutes down on the overall race. Tough, tough day for him today.
But, Lance aside, the stage was brilliant. Andy Schleck riding away from Contador at the finish of the stage made me happy as a clam. Good, good race.

Tour de Jank, Stage 7 – Newport

The Ride

There’s a couple of rides around here that are completely epic, and of which I don’t think I’ll ever get tired. Today’s stage was one of them – the loop around southwest Aquidneck Island, specifically Ocean Drive. Sure, there’s some traffic downtown, but in general, it’s awesome.

Headed out with Tracy, who’s in crazy good shape. Part of the highlight for me is riding through downtown Newport – there’s enough traffic that it’s going slower than you can go on a bike, and it’s a trip to dodge traffic. Once you’re past downtown, Ocean Drive weaves along the Atlantic, and takes you into Bellview Drive and the legendary mansions.

The last bit of the ride is out Burma Road – undeveloped property that the Navy’s been hoarding for a while.

This is why I love cycling.

The Race

First day in the mountains, and, as expected, not much shakeup.

Tour de Jank Stage 6, Jamestown Island

The Ride

Lovely, lovely ride Friday Evening – about 23 MPH around Jamestown Island, 16.9 MPH. The ride’s feeling good – the spin is coming back, and I’m digging on it.

Tonight was almost perfect, ‘cept for locking my keys in the car at the end of the ride, and needing to get Missy to come bail me out. But, sitting and watching the day fade into twilight was perfect.

The Race

CAV! Man, another bunch sprint. Beautiful.

Tour de Jank 2010, Stage 5 – Lame to Lamer

The Ride –

I must confess, sports fans, I almost blew it on Thursday. Good, good stuff at work, but I let it get in the way of lunchtime hill repeats.

Then, since number one son is headed off for the first time to sleepaway camp (Way up north in Connecticut, nearby April Anne) this weekend, and since I’m keeping the nation slightly safer for democracy this weekend, we headed down to Costello’s for some fried clammy goodness and family bonding before he goes away for weeks at a time. I’m including pictures taken from our seats that I took while we ate. Did I mention it’s BYOB?

Oh, right – the ride… Yeah, so today’s ride was exceptionally lame – I pulled out the trainer once we got home and got the kids in bed. Did about 45 minutes in front of the TeeVee listening to Bob Roll and Craig Gummer yammering on. But – I got ‘er dun.

The Race

I love the variety in cycling. The beauty of the mountains counterpointed by the terrible suffering going on in the faces of the climbers. The sea of colors as the peleton crosses fields in bloom.

But what hooked me was watching bunch sprints. During Armstrong’s first couple of tours, Mario Cipollini duked it out with Eric Zabel, Tom Steels, Stuart O’Grady. Absolutely nothing like watching 40 guys charging down a straight at 35 or 40 miles per hour, Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett shouting from the television, horns and fans clapping. Takes you straight back to the first time you rode your bike with a friend in the neighborhood – who’s fastest to the next driveway?

Today lived up to that – huge bunch sprint, with the “Manx Missile”, Mark Cavendish from the Isle of Man, running away from everyone.

Tour de Jank, Stage 4* – River Road and Neighborhood Crit

The Ride

The ride was a short one for Stage 4 – just 9.5 miles needed. I headed down to River Road in the rapidly fading twilight, rode it into town, turned around, and rode back. Once I got to the Neighborhood, I did two laps of the place at roughly a mile each to bring the total up to 11 miles. Such an overachiever.

The Race

Man, lots to talk about in the Tour. First, there was the disaster that was Stage 2 – who freaking cancels 20 km of racing due to rain? Though, to be fair, there was a huge amount of carnage in the peleton – VdV out, everyone down. But the interview with Thor Hushvold after he got his stage win stolen from him…

Stage 3 was no less gripping – Thor coming back from insult in stage 3 to take the stage on the cobbles; the remaining Schleck stunning the world by riding well, Lance Armstrong losing time and giving yet another classic sound bite (“Riding between cars and trying to pass, eating dirt – literally!”)

And Stage 4 was visually stunning – through fields of sunflowers, and ending with a full-on bunch sprint without major carnage.

Man, what a race

*I’m dink on Stage 3 – busy at work getting back on Tuesday, plus I’m looking for a suitable set of cobbles to ride. And, speaking of “busy at work” – Dave has a wonderful post about what a load of BS that is.