Big Ideas – Page 3 – Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle Too

Baggage

I didn’t run the Hartford Marathon.

Training was going great through the New Haven Road Race – mileage was adding up easy, weight was coming off, life was good.

Then, the summer ended, opportunities in the form of a couple of new job opportunities arose, obligations with social commitments grew, and training just kind of fell by the wayside. Not enough to where I couldn’t have gutted it out and ran another 4:30 marathon. But enough to where I really didn’t want to devote an entire day to another mediocre marathon.

So I bailed. Just flat out didn’t show up.

I regretted not getting to see Dianna and my buddy Doug run, and regretted not getting the sweetest beer in the world in the tent at the end of a long race. But, I got to move tables with my Cub Scout pack. Got to enjoy a fall day with my lovely bride. And a last (and first for this year) dinner at Abbott’s for the year.

And y’know what? In hindsight, I’m glad I bailed.

Not sure if I’m going to register for another marathon for a while. I may train for a few smaller ones that I could run if training goes well, but for the time being, I’ve decided that there’s enough in my life. Running and biking is part of that; committing to a giant race doesn’t have to be.

New Haven 20K / 2014 Bike Epic

Still the best run of the year. No question. Ran with Jon, saw a smiling Dianna at the finish, and I managed to get myself on the TV News talking about beer. Not a bad outing.

The weather wasn’t nearly so flawless as usual, but the course was awesome, only had one person waiting for runners tell me to “F- Off”. But, despite the mist, we lingered on the green longer than we had in years. Youngest kid ran the kids race in a sub-7; oldest kid got caught in traffic in the 5K but still finished in sub-9’s. I managed to finish the 20K in under 2 hours, making 27 miles for the weekend, and showing I’ve got a decent Hartford base. And, I did get Pepe’s Pizza after the race.

Big topic of conversation was how to do a big bike ride, outside of an organized event. It’s a continuation of a thread that I’ve had going on with Jeff and Warren ever since we did Mooseman back in *harumph*.

200 on 100, the classic Vermont Route, is the inspiration. It’s got a couple of great things going for it, such as:

being reasonably close to a critical mass of folks with whom I want to ride;
having all sorts of great beer on the route
Tough course but clearly doable

There is one chief disadvantage:

It’s freaking 200 miles
(Which is a long, long way)

So, in brainstorming, we came up with the brilliant idea: Why not make it a two day ride?. ‘Cause, y’know, two hilly centuries back-to-back, that’s super do-able.

Right now the rough outline is:

Pick a date
Find a place to stay about halfway up Vermont (Both Canadians and flatland New Englanders coming up)
Arrive Evening of Day 0 (Geeky crews start with a clean register)
Supper, beer, awards, and tea
Wake Up
Coffee and Bacon
Ride to Canada on Day 1
Have our awesome SAG drivers (who will likely be someone’s spouse/significant other) drag our bikes and sweaty us back to our HQ
Supper, beer, awards, and tea
Wake Up
Coffee and Bacon
Ride to Mass
Have our awesome SAG drivers (who will likely be someone’s spouse/significant other) drag our bikes and sweaty us back to our HQ
Supper, beer, awards, and tea
Wake Up
Coffee and Bacon
Ibuprofen
Return home, sleeping as the SO’s drive, and promise that we’ll do what they want on the next vacation

Route map should be easy – “Follow VT 100”

Anyway, there are details to work out. But, it’s giving me incentive for many more foggy bike rides next spring

Galloway

So, we’re up in Burlington for the Vermont City Marathon (again). The greatest thing is that there’s absolutely zero pressure this year – Melissa, my longsuffering wife, and I are running the two person relay.

It’s an odd concept to consider, that a half marathon is an “easy” thing. It’s not, of course, for folks who haven’t been wearing out sneakers for a good long while, but Missy and I are both around a half dozen full marathons each. For the record, she’s faster. And base runs each week have included an hour and a half or so for each of us for the last couple years.

Plus, we’re not actually “racing” the relay, though when she ends up posting a faster split than me on Sunday I’ll not hear the end of it.

Anyway, going WAY back, I’m a huge fan of Jeff Galloway. Back in 1999, coming off of a couple years assigned to a fast attack submarine as a professional Steely Eyed Killer of the Deep, Melissa bounced a copy of Galloway’s Book On Running off me one night as we enjoyed our DINK (Dual Income, No Kids) bliss. “Hey, if we do this, we could head down to Orlando to run the Disney Marathon, assuming the world doesn’t end at Two-Thousand-Zero-Zero (Party over, whoops, out of time).

I took a look, and the book made sense – keep using your legs regularly, even if you have to walk a little, and they’ll get stronger. Build slowly, and you’ll avoid injury. All sorts of good stuff.

So, we jumped into the training program, little knowing that our first marathons would end up postponed by a kid, two moves, two career changes, another kid, a war, and general malaise.

After Missy found out we (she, to be completely accurate) were pregnant with J, I stuck with the training program. Check the day, run the mileage, and amazingly it kept getting easier to crank out miles. I topped out the weekend after Veterans’ Day with a 16 miler that I finished without really feeling winded, but then Connecticut winter set in, the reality of traveling to Florida with an extremely pregnant wife became apparent, and we decided to take a pass on the Marathon.

But I kept coming back to Galloway’s book. A huge personal accomplishment – doing something actually athletic is daunting to a bookish, overweight engineer – was broken down into an algorithm that I had evidence could actually work. So, it kept nagging away at the back of my head. Big rides were the first milestones I knocked down – Spent 99-2004 chasing Lance Armstrong’s myth, and went from being amazed I’d ridden the Colchester Half Marathon course without stopping to doing 20 on a regular basis after work, and eventually knocking out a couple centuries in Texas. But even cycling worked on Galloway’s model.

I eventually ran a marathon on Galloway’s plan. And a couple more, though I’ve tweaked the strategy.

This afternoon, I actually got to see the Man himself. He was signing books at the VCM expo. We’d driven up to Burlington early, let the kids skip school, checked into the hotel, and hit the Marathon expo on Friday night instead of Saturday after the YAM Scram.

Galloway was packing up after signing books. Wafer-thin dude, jeans and a long-sleeved tee.

It’s tough meeting a legend. “Hey, you changed my life” or “So, like that book you wrote way back when, yeah, that one was pretty good, and I’ve spent the last decade and a half trying to live up to it” or just throwing myself at his feet in supplication. None of that seemed appropriate.

The general feeling was like back in 8th grade when you finally go up to a girl to ask her to for-real slow dance. Knew I wanted to say hi, but also knew that, late in the day Galloway was probably way more interested in packing up and getting supper. So, I , like many, many others, I’m sure, thanked him profusely for the huge effect he’d had on me. He shook my hand, said something gracious. And much like my first real slow dance, as soon as it was over I ran off to talk to my wingman (in this case #1 son) and figure out how the whole thing actually went.

Despite being a bleeding idiot socially, though, I love this whole running thing. Got to run with Bart Yasso when Missy did Philadelphia through the Runner’s World meetup. Get to train on a daily basis on the same roads that John Kelley and Amby Burfoot cut their teeth on. Meet interesting people from all walks of life through races, training, and the internet. And get to talk about tough stuff like it’s old hat (most of the country still says “Woah” when you say 5 miles).

I got to meet one of my heros today, and tomorrow, like a couple of days a week for the last decade-plus, will be a better day because of him.

Perspective

Or Frame of Reference is Important

Went swimming at lunch today. Which is great, right?

Or at least it would be, ‘cept I ran into my buddy T., who was heading into the locker room as I was heading out.

“Hey, how are you?” sez me.

He sez – “Can’t talk right now – gotta take a pee break – I’m at 4500 on my way to 3K for the day”

Well, crap. Right about then, my jammers seemed to get a whole lot roomier in the crotch. 4,500 yards and he’s not completely spent?

I’ve got to throw in a little perspective. T’s one of those great guys who everyone seems to know who actually do walk on water. He’s supremely competent in everything he’s approached, one of the nicest guys on the planet, great wife, cute kids, and an absolute animal in the pool, on the bike, or running. He’s awesome to ride with – knows every road in southeastern New England, does a great job regardless of skill level, and never, ever, ever hesitates to say “Sure” when you want to ride. And, he’s spent the last 10 months recovering from a pretty serious crash, but is back to being able to tear my legs off at will.

I’m a hack. I’ve been 20-30 pounds overweight for my entire adult life, and while I’ve developed endurance, I’ve never, ever been able to get my weight down to the point where I can develop speed. Anyone who has ever tried developing speed without dropping weight can tell you where that leads (straight to PF, ITB problems, or something that requires PT and ibuprofen).

So, I popped on the headphones, pulled down the goggles, and started cranking. And y’know what? About 300 yards into it, I realized that while I’ll probably never approach Tracy’s level, I’m doing all right. My resting heartrate is down in the 50’s, I’ve still got all my hair, I’ve got the time and disposable income to have pretty much any gear that I’d like and at least one or two chances to get out each week. All in all, I’m doing all right.

Perspective.

I’ve spent the last 15 years chasing (almost literally) the myth of Lance Armstrong. My enthusiasm for fitness really did start with a bike similar to the one pictured above. Was reading about Armstrong’s ’99 tour, and watching the OLN coverage on basic cable. I needed to get back into shape, had some time on my hands with a new job, so figured “Why not?” Started watching the want ads in the newspaper, found someone selling the Trek second hand for cheap, and picked it up.

And rode it, and rode it, and rode it, all the while hearing Phil and Paul in my ears.

My lovely wife and I didn’t have kids at the time, so Saturday mornings were mine. The Trek shifted Saturday Mornings from fishing to cycling, but I wasn’t riding for me – I was riding with racing in mind, despite being in my mid-20’s, 30 pounds overweight, and miles away from any organized racing scene.

Media didn’t help. I still look forward to each new issue of Bicycling, Triathlete, Runner’s World, whatever. Still love watching racing despite having my former heroes brought to earth over the last year. But I’m never going to run a 2:30 marathon, or do a 5 hour Half Iron, or drop the peloton heading up L’Alpe.

I reached down to the bottom of the pool, tucked my chin into my chest, pulled my legs into my chest, blew air out through my nose, planted my feet on the wall upside down, pushed off, stretched tall in good Pilates stance, and glided out to the first line of flags. While my head surfaced to take the first breath of that lap, I blew out jealousy, disappointment, and false expectations, and pulled in a lungful of wet, chlorinated air.

There’s a lot of folks not in the pool today, I thought, and pushed out another 500 with a smug sense of superiority over the couch potatoes who were just then sitting with a plate of fries. (MMmmm, fries) Even if I won’t ever be in the same league as the pros, at least I’m a step above the slackers, right?

But while I caught my breath waiting for my last set, I realized that standing on a pedestal above the lazy was going to be as healthy as trying to reach an elite level while juggling work, family, and some semblance of making a difference in my community.

Perspective. It’s about focusing on what’s actually changeable (controlling cravings for french fries for one). Focusing on actual flaws (Blowing off workouts for sitting on the couch) instead of perceived flaws (Bike weighing in at 19.5 lbs as opposed to under the UCI minimum). Focusing on awesomeness, like skiing a loop with my awesome sons, running River Road with my longsuffering wife, or the connections I’ve made in the larger running community.

Perspective. Another thing that T. has to teach me. And has been trying to in his own quiet way every awesome loop we’ve done of Newport Island.

B@$+dR@. (Still not there yet with the whole perspective thing)

Harpoon Point-to-point Ride

“Each year, the Feeding America network provides food assistance to more than 25 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.” Up to 89,000 folks in Vermont, 500,000 folks in Connecticut, and over 4,000,000 in the Great State of Texas will face food insecurity this year.

Melissa/Missy and I are going to be riding the Harpoon Point To Point ride next weekend. It’s a benefit ride to support the Vermont Food Banks. Mostly, we’re riding to celebrate turning 40 at the end of the month.

However, the ride does have a fundraising component, so I’ll guilt y’all a little. Missy and I hit up our family for the ride in lieu of birthday stuff, and, frankly, ought to take it out of hide for the ride as well as being more pro-active about dropping off donations each Sunday morning at St. Andrew.

So, figure out where you can go in your community and drop off cash or good quality food. (Or watch for the Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts to drop off food drive bags at the end of October).

If you’ve pitched in in your community, and want to sponsor us and the good people of the Green Mountain State, links to our donation pages are below.

Missy’s fundraising page

Billy’s fundraising page

Gran Fondo NYC 2012

So, I’m still fat, still slow, and, relative to most folks who’ll set out to ride 110 miles in a day, out of shape. But, I’ve got a couple of great riding friends, Steve and Tracy, both of whom are disciplined and freaks of nature who wanted to give the Gran Fondo NYC a try this spring. Figured there’s worse things to do than to spend a spring weekend in NYC, and a spring day on the bike.

Plus, you never know who you’re going to run into in NYC. Not sure if the D-O-Double G has moved north, or if this was CSIS:

Course is good – 110 miles, 4 timed climbs, one Cat 1 climb, four Cat 3’s, 12 Cat 5’s. Traffic management is pretty much awesome while the route’s open, rest stops were good, and, as far as epic rides go, this fits pretty well. The Hudson Valley is georgous.”

<br /> <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/embedded/41345730">GRAN FONDO NEW YORK 2012</a><br /> <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/?location=Stony Point, NY">Find more Bike Ride in Stony Point, NY</a><br />
Find more Bike Ride in Stony Point, NY

Start was at the George Washington Bridge, 7AM sharp. With the caveat that there was a staging area that closed at 6:15. We stayed on the Lower East Side, 11 miles from the start, so were on the road about 5 freaking AM, riding up Broadway. This may have been my favorite part of the ride – every corner, there were more riders joining us as we headed towards the start. Nice, relaxed pace. Pretty organized getting onto the bridge for the actual start. Kind of freaky hanging up in mid-air over the Hudson. Steve and Tracy are the skinny guys. For the record, I did pee off the bridge.

Pretty much by design, this was the last time I saw Steve and Tracy – they were much fitter, and I knew I was going to be slogging over the course. Not often I get to spend a day alone with my thoughts. So, I clicked it into cruising mode, as the climbs were the only timed part of the course. Until about an hour into the ride, when I felt my pedal tug back, then start spinning, and – another cycling first, the popped chain!

And, for the rest of the day, I was kind of in catch-up mode. Had to wait about 45 minutes for a SAG, then a ride about a mile up the course to someone with a chain tool and a pin. I was carrying Two spare tubes, CO2, hex wrenches, a couple of zip ties, but had never popped a chain before, so wasn’t prepared for this. Last time I buy a Shimano chain (replaced it this winter) – the link that busted was where the broken pin went in, so it’s possibly mechanic (me) error on the installation. But why fool with breaking pins when SRAM or Wipperman or a couple others have groovy sliding links that avoid these troubles?

The ride was georgous, I was fat and slow. Felt pretty good heading up Bear Mountain, the biggest climb of the day, but when I got to the third and final climbs, I was popped. Part of it was poor training, for which I was compensating by soft pedaling along most of the flat portions of the course, part of it was the heat – I think the temperature topped out about 85 degrees, and don’t think I’d finished a training ride over 60 degrees all year. Climbing in the shade was pretty OK, climbing in the sun just killed me.

In the end, I met my goal of finishing an epic for the first time since I rode the Houston-Austin MS150 in 2002. It wasn’t pretty, but I did get to spend the whole day on the bike, covered 123 miles between the 110 miles of the Fondo, the 11 miles to get to the start, and the 2 miles across Manhattan to get back to the hotel. All in all, a good day on the bike.

The good:

Course support was awesome – cops at almost every turn, much of the course was closed to traffic, great rest stops spaced about 10 miles apart

The day was awesome. Gripe about being hot aside, there was little wind, lots of sun, and pretty good roads

Ride up the Hudson River Road may be the prettiest road I’ve ridden in a while, and I live in coastal Connecticut

The Meh:

Lines at the rest stops – the volunteers rocked, but the logistics of distributing water and sports drink to 8K people hadn’t been well thought through. There were huge water bowsers at all the rest stops, and huge lines as there was a single (massive) tap off of each.

The GFNYC Jersey. It’s a very nice jersey; however, with every freaking rider wearing the same thing, as soon as you separated from your riding partners, every freaking rider looked identical. Made it tough to regroup

No beer at the finish.

The Ugly:

The last 5 miles of the ride were on an open New Jersey 5 lane (two traffic lanes each way and a suicide lane in the middle) that was backed up due to the traffic control at the ride finish. Most of the trouble was due to idiot cyclists who had been riding closed roads all day weaving in and out of the traffic and running lights instead of being vehicular cyclists

Would I ride it again? Probably not – too early in the season, pretty expensive (register today for next year and it’s ONLY $220), and involves a weekend in NYC that doesn’t involve museums and fine dining. But, like running the NYC marathon, I’m thrilled that I did it.

Missed It

We’re having a really, really late Indian Summer (Indian Spring?) this week. Nine inches of snow this weekend (My lovely wife insists it was only six, but since when did women have a good judge for size?), all completely gone and almost 40 degrees this morning when I woke up. No excuse not to ride the bike, right?

So, I did, and what a difference it made. 28 and a half minutes for the 7 miles into work, clean lungs, and the best parking spot in the building.

Run on Purpose had a good post this morning on maintaining mental state for getting out the door:

One of the things I talk with my oldest son about is the remote control idea to discipline. As any older brother he gets his fair share of being tested by his younger brother. We often talk about who has control of his emotions. Does he give the remote control of his emotions to his brother or does he take charge.

I’ve used a simlar strategy with my boys, but hadn’t taken at as far as ROP does – and to be fair, the weather, or work, or any number of things get my remote more often than I’d care to admit. One thing I really admire about my lovely wife is that she’s in complete charge of her remote – doesn’t do a thing unless it’s on her plan, or in line with whatever she wants to accomplish in a given day. Wish that I had a tenth of her willpower on crap like that.

2011 kickoff

Ah, blogosphere, if there’s any left.

The end of 2010’s been rough, running-wise for me. I completely failed at Fat Cyclist’s lose 10 pounds by Christmas challenge. The start was good; but the finish left a whole lot to be desired. For a variety of reasons, primarily work-related, I fell off the wagon and finished off on Christmas Eve right where I’d started.

Which I suppose is a large part of the story of 2010.

I didn’t really make any real resolutions for 2010, so there’s no real way to sum up the year. I suppose I could chunk my dailymile.com feed (Love, love, love that site) to figure out how this year compared to last year, but, frankly, I’m afraid it’d depress me.

I ran the Vermont City Marathon in May, and then pretty much sat up in the saddle for the rest of the year. Vermont City was a great race, but, as usual, my training was sub-par, and I faded hard at the end of the run. What was different, though, was that I felt completely compelled to finish the race when I cramped at 16 miles.

Melissa ran New Haven this year instead of me, which was completely fair, and about which I have no regrets other than pure jealousy. But I think that without that as an end of summer goal, I kind of wandered…

My alternate goal was to lose 20 lbs between Memorial day and the end of summer – absolutely no progress there.

Overall, though, I’m cool with it – this was a tough year at work, and I’ve pulled through with general success. My fitness hasn’t lost anything since this time last year; my relationship with Melissa has probably never been better, and my oldest kid isn’t getting notes sent home from his teacher on a regular basis, and actually got a smokin’ good report card this last marking period.

There are prospects at work that look promising both professionally and in terms of work-life balance, and I’ve been selectively de-committing from some of the non-work stressors that I have.

So, I’m upbeat but realistic about 2011.

Enough so that I think I’ll set some goals:

1. Run Vermont City again. Loved the race, and Melissa wants to run Flying Pig. Which means if I want another family weekend in Burlington over Memorial Day, I need to suck it up and run. Oh, the sacrifices I make.
2. Finish FatCyclist’s 10 lbs plan by the end of January. Frankly, it was working while I was able to reschedule priorities. January looks to be somewhat less chaotic than December was, and it’d be nice to roll into training for Vermont City at 175 instead of 185.
3. Tri, tri again. I really regret not doing an olympic tri last summer. I especially regret not doing one with my buddy Dave W, who is no longer working at the same place with the part-time job. So, hopefully, I can do a win-win here and keep in touch with someone who’s been a good friend (something I’ve been notoriously bad at in the past), AND work out my tri demons. I’m also good for the NAVSTA Newport tri in August – it’s a sprint, and I’d love to see what I can do with some good training and 20 lbs less baggage.
4. Not get onto Jon’s list of dead blogs. I really miss posting as much as I had in the past. I also need some inspiration – who’s writing well?

Here’s hoping to get back to you all in 364 days with a great 2011 wrap-up.

10# in December; Careful riding in the basement

Fat Cyclist, who never ceases to be an inspiration to me, posted a quick framework for losing 10 pounds by Christmas. Basically, it boils down to:

Eat Sensibly
Exercise

So, naturally, I’m all over it, despite having lost and regained the same 5 pounds for all of 2010. Haven’t seen south of 175, which is where I’ll be if I can do this, since, early 2009? Maybe. Something like that.

Anyway, I’m in. And characteristically, I managed to get a flat while riding my bike on rollers last night. I’ll let that sink in –

I got a flat in my basement.

It’s probably got something to do with riding off the rollers and pinch-flatting. I haven’t yet looked. But, it’s not the most auspicious start.

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.