Category: Run

Bluff Point Trail Race

Will post more later, but wanted to get the following blowing through the ether:

1. The Running Chicks, Dianna and April-Anne, are both as gracious, witty, intelligent, and lovely in real life as they are in cyberspace.
2. Dianna is, in fact, famous. But I’ll let her tell that story.
3. It was cloudy and cold before the race started. When we found April-Anne, the sun broke through, and the skies cleared up throughout the entire race. When it was time to go, it got cloudy again. Freaky.
4. I (pretty much) met both of my goals for the race. On section by the tracks between loops, where there was two way traffic, I only got passed by one guy, the eventual race winner, before I started the second loop. AND, I finished in under an hour, which completely rocked.
5. Thanks to being a Gen X’r and growing up in a world where nothing is spoken without a twinge of sarcasm, when TRCWTOH said “Hey, Speed Demon” at the beginning of the race, I thought I was going too slow through traffic. SO, I saw an opening, zipped through, and after about 30 seconds looked back to make sure TRC’s were following. They weren’t, and I suddenly felt rude.
6. I ran the rest of the race in fear that I’d bonk, or slow up, and get passed by them, and get laughed at for being a jerk.
7. (That wouldn’t have happened. See comment 1)
8. No one noticed my post-race hiccups.
9. Clam Chowder is not a good pre-race lunch.
10. Jeff – be advised, there was a spectacular sunset waiting at the end of the race.

OK, so that’s a lot closer to being a full race report than I’d anticipated. Wow. In any case, this was probably the best “race” I’ve done. Granted, I don’t race a lot, but it was nice to achieve goals.

I’m majorly sore, though – I think that I might have overtrained in the last week, with a tough ride Sunday, epic run Monday, pretty decent run Wednesday, and an all-out effort tonight. There might be something to the taper thing. Maybe I’ll try it next time. Not helping was the roll my left ankle took on quite literally the very last bit of granite in the rocky section. The ankle twinged, and my knee started aching, and I very nearly considered abandoning. But, I slowed up for about a half mile or so; things felt better, so I trundled on. I’m gonna hate life in the morning.

The race had the best start ever. We were all milling about the starting line, and the race director got up to give the usual pre-race speech – you know, be safe, etc, and so on. Then, about the time he should have said “OK, now let’s line up to start”, he said “On your mark, get set, go!”, and 95% of us said “Wha? For real?” and started running. Good times, and kind of funny.

In any case, it was great seeing others from the RBF in real-life. Now I’m off to hit the Advil.

Five Easy Miles

(Didn’t think I’d be writing that a couple of months ago.)

(Heck, Tuesday morning, I didn’t think I’d be writing that anytime soon)

Stopped by Bluff Point on my way from bathtime to “back to work”. Figured I’d just take an easy jog along the second loop of the race course, do what would be about 3.5 or so with the little extra to get from the start/finish to where the first loop lets out. No map again, but after staring at it Monday Night, it’s now burned into my head.

And the second loop is that easy. No real hills of which to speak. The part I’d skipped turns out to be darn pretty, in my opinion, too. There’s more along the tracks, true. But then it heads up to the Haley Farm parking lot through a wide-open field along a backwater from the sound. Probably because New England is pretty much completely wooded these days, actual acres of open space that aren’t parking lots are pretty spectacular.

Rather than head back over the railroad bridge, though, I figured I’d take the wrong turn again to see how tough it would be to get back to the entrance to the park. Not tough at all. There was a semi-paved trail (as in it’d been paved maybe 10 years ago) almost all the way back, then a short jaunt on roads to the park. Figure it added maybe a half to a whole mile. I was comletely electronics-free tonight. Not even a watch.

Took Tuesday off. Smart idea; I was sore something fierce. Today, I felt fine. After jogging tonight, I’m almost wishing I’d really pushed – my legs feel let down, and my lungs are wondering when they’re going to get a chance to work again. And since I’m saying this in public, I’m sure to bonk on Friday, and wander in at about 1:40 or so…

Reasons to love the Giro:
1. The Giro Theme Song – If y’all haven’t plopped down $6 for access to OLN’s video feed, do it. The Giro Theme Song starts at about 6 minutes in – big band horns, guy singin’ in Italian “El Grande Giro, El Grande Giro” the something about first one to arrive, I guess. I need to find time and figure out how to rip this to an MP3.
2. Today Danilo DiLuca, the guy wearing the Pink Jersey (leader of the Giro, not yellow like the Frogs) got dropped, and rather than sitting up, the peleton tried to leave him behind. Yeah, baby. Were this le Tour, there’d be whining and crying about that not being sporting.
3. Sprints – The last kilometer of many of the stages have finished twists, turns, and hills – completely thrilling sprints. And no-one’s whining. Plus, it seems like most of the good sprinters today are either Italian or Australian, so there seems to be even a little more gusto.
4. Podium Girls.
5. The computerized course map and weather forecast – provided by the Italian Air Force.
6. Again, the music in the video feed is the greatest – either European Big Band, or really cheezy EuroPop. Makes me want to head up to Logan and stow away.
7. Italians are just that much cooler than everyone else in Europe. So cool, in fact, they don’t have to make a big deal about it at all.
8. Mario Cipollini. Yes, I know he’s not racing. Yes, he is, indeed, that cool.
9. Fassa Bortolo, for at least keeping the idea of a great Italian leadout train alive. Yes, they’re having a rough Giro. but, I still catch my breath when I see them form up near the end of a stage. Plus, like Johan’s been all-over, they’re riding the insanely sweet new Cannondales.
10. That Cunego and Simoni both ride on the same team. All that’s lacking is a fat lady and a score by Puccini.

If I hit the $123 million Powerball tonight, I’m dropping everything, and jumping on my bike to see if I can ride my 32 year old butt into cycling shape. An American’s got to win this thing sooner or later (which may be part of its charm)…

Recherche des Femmes

So I read Warren’s post about scouting the race course, and I think to myself “Self, that sounds like a fine idea. Plus, today’s so FREAKIN’ BEAUTIFUL a run at Bluff Point might just set things straight in the world.” So, I head there (while I’m on my way to Waterford to do a little bit of work in the evening) with the plan of knocking out a quick lap of the point, and leave the other section, the one I haven’t ever run, as a surprise for race day.

I didn’t take a race map, which turned out to be a mistake, though in the end quite a pleasant one. You can look at one here. Just a bit of warning – this is a long post.

The loop on the point goes counter-clockwise. I usually run it clockwise, so this was the first stretch for me. The start of the race is going to be pretty fast – it’s flat from the parking lot until after crossing a small creek at about .75 miles. After the creek, there’s a couple of minor hills until you get out to the Sound. This was a great change for me – somehow, running this leg south rather than north seemed fraught with possibility – the wide expanse of water stretching out while I ran. Good stuff.

Once you get out to the actual point (with the bluff, natch), the course turns uphill. There’s a pretty steep section just around the first corner, then it’s downhill towards Mumford Point. As the course turns north, things get pretty steadily uphill. Not steep by any means, but certainly uphill.

This was a fun section today – As I made the turns east and then north at the point, I caught glimpses of someone riding a MTB, and not going particularly fast. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking one’s time, especially on multi-use trails, but the whole “small dog” thing kicked in, and I wondered if I could catch the cyclist on the uphill. I’ve ridden it a few times, and it’s kind of a bear pedaling while trying to avoid babies’ heads and sand and loose gravel. Anyhow, about halfway to the Foundation (old colonial Governor’s house – colonial as in the time period, not the house – there’s nothing left but the basement walls), I see said cyclist, and realize he’s about 12. I pass a couple of words of encouragement (something along the lines of “Hey, downshift and spin – you’re doing great!”) and he flashes me a toothy grin. Man, I can’t wait to get the boys out on the trails. I caught his dad about 20 yards later. You could tell he wasn’t thrilled about being caught by a runner, but he was beaming as he looked back and saw his boy chugging along.

At the foundation, I took the right down towards Mumford Cove. This is a deceptively tough section, as my tendency when running downhill is to land on my heels. Which, on this section of trail, is a sure and certain way to bring on shin-splints and possibly throw a knee. The upper section is just good old Connecticut babies’ heads and hardwood roots, but when the trail gets down along the water’s edge, it becomes either mud or straight up exposed granite. For this, and this reason only, I’d possibly suggest a straight-up road shoe, instead of trail shoes, to cushion against heel strike. Downhill on granite is tough, no matter what kind of Chi or Pose you’re smoking.

Past the granite is a flat, grassy section. Unless it’s muddy, pace will pick up here something fierce, as the rest of the course is relatively flat. After the grassy section, the course takes a right onto the road that runs parallel to AMTRAK. This is where I’d planned on turning back to the car, but I was pretty happy about then – I’d done 4 miles in 33 minutes, which isn’t shabby, considering I kept dialing back my perceived effort. So, despite not having a map, and never having run Haley Farm, I channeled a little bit of Jeff, and figured “Hey, what the heck? Why not go explore?”

The road parts aren’t bad at all – cinders and a little dirt. However, there’s about a half mile that’s run on actual railroad ballast – jagged, strawberry sized rocks. There’s a singletrack there, but I imagine I’ll be dodging runners coming the other way.

I’m completely sketchy on the map at this point – I’d never run Haley Farm, but will include it in my future plans – very nice property. Looking at the map, my best guess is that the race goes over a pedestrian bridge over the tracks, then turns right and runs parallel to the tracks on the north side for a while. I didn’t take this road today, but it looked like a really nice dirt road. Again, I think that once the race gets off of Bluff Point, it’s going to be fast and flat (with the exception of the overpass). The turnaround is at the parking lot for Haley Farm.

It looks like I ran the “back” portion of the Haley Farm loop this evening as the out portion. It’s a great stretch of road – it’ll be a long, slight uphill from the parking lot to the railroad bridge. Just after the parking lot, there is one of the finest rock walls I’ve ever seen. It’s almost nice enough to have been like a solid wall – the top corners are exceptionally square, and there’s a really nice corner where two sections of wall come together.

(*** NOT RACE PREVIEW ***) In any case, when I got to the parking lot, I figured “Hey, my guess is that the folks planning the race are going to want to kill us”, so I took the trail that looked like it’d have the most climbing. A couple of wrong turns later, I ended up on one of the fields at Fitch High School, frightening about a half-dozen wild turkeys who were coming out for an evening scratch. Wow. The school had great facilities. And a view that, quite frankly, I couldn’t believe a public high school could afford. Go Falcons!

A couple of minutes of jogging the school perimeter, and I couldn’t find a well defined trail back down. So, rather than doing what a sane person would do and going back to the place from whence I’d came, I started bushwacking downhill, figuring that I’d either hit railroad tracks or something else. Eventually, I found a trail, and took the path that looked the most westerly and the most downhill.

Of course, this was the wrong way. I kept wondering when I was going to find the railroad bridge again, so I called up the Forerunner’s handy “breadcrumb” map. And lo and behold! I was already paralleling the tracks I’d run on the out. I could have gotten back by taking the north side of the tracks all the way to the park entrance, but that would have added mileage, and I was already pushing six for the afternoon.

So I turned around, saw another deer, and headed up the hill to take the fork that I was pretty sure would take me back to the bridge. Quick note on the deer – I saw, quite literally, a ton of deer (assuming an average weight of slightly less than 200 lbs – I saw probably a dozen) this evening. The funny thing is that they didn’t run when they noticed I was headed their way. They looked at me for a while, then kind of wandered into the bush. Pretty cool. (*** End the wrong turn ***)

Finally found the railroad bridge, and absolutely flew home. The last mile and a half are flat, flat – quite possibly even slightly downhill. Finishing strong should not be an issue.

So that’s the course. The first mile and a half are pretty easy – straight out to the Sound, a couple of rollers. The next mile is a decent uphill – not steep, per say, but consistently up. Next mile – downhill, significant part on bare rock. The rest of the race should be decently flat, with the exception of the railroad bridge.

Useless Stats – today I did 8.4 in 76 minutes. Not shabby at all. Like I said, the first 4 were 33 minutes flat. The killers were mile 6 and mile 7 – those were the mile from the Haley Farm parking lot up to Fitch, and the mile where I was lost and wandering through the woods. Wildlife was a dozen or so deer, half-dozen wild turkeys, and a bunch of squirrels. Fallout of going almost 3 miles further than my previous long run for the year (6 miles as far as I can recall) in a pair of shoes I don’t usually wear is a blister on the ball of my left foot, and a blister on the heel of my right foot, just below the Achilles’ tendon. I’ve already drained the blister on the ball, the other one’s small.

Recovery beverage was 20 oz of Guida’s Strawberry reduced-fat milk. Kind of like a sports drink with protein. Went with the Guida’s over NesQuick. Why? Because, the Guida’s was 170 cal per 10 oz serving, while the NesQuick was freakin’ 200 cal. Which was kind of amazing, since the NesQuick was made with skim milk (“Fat Free!” the rabbit said), and the Guida’s was either 1 or 2%. So, I was getting a better recovery balance, and avoiding (some) processed sugar.

Today was an important run for me (Important day at the Giro – Petacchi, arguably the best sprinter in the world, finally won a stage). I haven’t gone this long since September in Norway. I’d been really concerned about the race because of that. But, I showed I could make the distance, and I finished with a little bit left in the tank. I’m totally psyched about the race. If I can manage 8:15’s without getting lost, I should be able to come in at under an hour. I’ll be happy if I can come in under 65 minutes, which’d be right around 9 minute miles.

Next project – the 8 lbs between me and 159. Which should get me to the last week in June and the start of Marathon training in earnest. (And the pipe dream of a Boston qualifying time).

BeaverTail

Fun run Thursday. Not necessarily a “good” run – I missed both mileage goals and time goals, but I did a little exploring, which is always fun. Guess Jeff got me jonesing to explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilizations.

Anyhow, I parked down at the south end of Jamestown, and figured I’d run to BeaverTail and back to the car (for about 3 or 3.5 miles), then past the car back towards town about a half mile or so, and end up with about 4.5 or 5 depending on how I felt. Well, I didn’t quite make that (did about 4 miles in about 35 minutes), but I had a great run. Pics to follow. Here’s a map – the red spots are Rhode Island parkland in the Bay.

When I got to the park, instead of running along the park road, I ducked down a trail I’d been meaning to follow for a while. Ran about 200 yards, and saw this:

Cool. I thought.

Little ways further on, I saw this old WWII bunker. I’d seen it a couple of times from the road behind it, but had never gone around. All concrete and nifty. Good laser target; set the fuse for a long delay (on the order of tens of miliseconds), and you could pop this easy now-a-days.

AAA emplacement, too. Kind of nuts to think that only 65 years ago, folks were waking up here every morning worried that they’d be shelled by the Germans.

Looking south, towards Bermuda, past the lighthouse.

I’m sure the guy’s a fine tree, but PBS has spoiled me – the only thing I can think when I see a painter is “Happy trees”…

After this, I end up on the serious trails on the western side of the park. Serious, winding, rutty, muddy, singletrack. Good stuff, makes me want knobbies on my MTB again. Sections are right up against the rocks dropping into the bay. Nothing serious like they’ve got out in California (I’m thinking the stretch over on the western side of Point Loma, not quite up to Sea World), but still pretty sketchy. Sorry, but I didn’t take pictures.

Back at the car, I’d parked near a Nature Conservancy bit of land. Here’s the sign:

Here’s the trail:

Here’s the reward:

How cool is that? Unmarked, deserted stretch of beach? I need to start waking up earlier.

Paolo Bettini

Wow – First stage of the Giro d’Italia yesterday. Incredible course down along the “toe” of Italy. I’ve been through the Strait of Mesinna (n.b. – it’s always a “Strait”, as in the “Strait of Gibraltar”, “Strait of Hormuz”, “Strait of Malacca”, “Strait of Juan de Fuca”, ’cause there’s only one way through. Easy to spot the folks who don’t actually read charts, ’cause you’ll hear them talking about going through the “Straits”. Sorry for the rant) between Sicily and Italy, and it was incredible. There were tiny (about 4′ long) Med dolphins playing in the bow wave on the sonar dome, and more ferries than I could count heading between insanely beautiful villas built into the side of the limestone cliffs rising out of azure waters. The first stage was all that and a decent (1500′) climb, all about twice as fast as I could possibly go.

Bettini took a flier with about 1 KM to go – the course made a couple of really tight turns, and there was a decent uphill of a couple meters that threw off the sprinters’ teams, and he was able to take the stage and the Maliga Rosa. How cool is that – Olympic Gold last year, and his first Giro stage win this year? With the Pro Tour bringing all the big teams (if not all the big names) to Italy this year, the Giro has a whole new level of cool cycling cred – everyone watches le Tour; only the cool kids watch the Giro.

4 miles along Burma Trail today, 32 ish minutes. I’d be happy, ‘cept the two miles back were tough. Yeah, yeah – almost 8 minute mile average. Frankly, I’m ecstatic at the progress I’ve made.

And Dianna – I did register for the Bluff Point run. Signed up for the 7.4 mile “Long Loop”. I’ve done the section on Bluff Point proper pretty frequently, but haven’t extended out to Haley farm. May have to go preview later this week.

Dueling Sunsets

I have taken the most extraordinary pictures of sunset this evening but alas the margin of this blog is too small to contain them…

Sorry, it made me chuckle. But then, I’m a math kind of guy.

I really did intend to post east coast sunset pictures tonight to do kind of a dueling banjos kind of thing with Jeff, but I cannot find the cable to connect my camera to my computer. I’m not quite sure the pics from tonight are going to come out, but it doesn’t matter. Not one tiny bit.

I’m still a little strapped at work, but my head’s above water, not just my nose. I’d only done one extra night at the office, mainly because I needed to decompress a bit, but also because I got a revised schedule that does not include my getting a peptic ulcer. I was going to head straight to the office late this afternoon after I finished up with my client today. But, it’s drill this weekend, and supposed to rain Saturday and Sunday again to boot, and the grass has been growing like crazy. So, I swung by the house to chew on some pasta salad and cut the lawn. The lawn ended up being festive – the five year old was chasing me, then running away when I’d swing around for the next stripe, and baby and mommy were playing in the swing. Finished up (ahem, you ran out of gas with about a quarter of the back yard to go, says the wife) at bathtime, and while Missy went to tuck the kids in, I headed off to the office.

Via Bluff Point. I got to the parking lot just as the sun’d gone below the horizon. Hit the trail toting just the camera. And almost instantly felt just plain good.

Everything Tuesday’s run was, today’s was the exact opposite. The muscles felt loose, the ground was rising up to meet my feet, my breathing was good. Cosmic alignment, I’m guessing.

I’d left the iPod in the car, so had nothing but my thoughts to keep me company on the trails. Oddly enough, my mind turned to music, specifically meter. I’ll preface this by saying I couldn’t carry rhythm in a bucket, and my knowledge of music theory stops after trebel clef, bass cleff, and “This one goes to eleven”. But, while planning this entry in my head, I thought back to one of the runs last year at Pequot Woods where I’d mentioned that jazz went best with trail running, since both involved improvising around a regular meter. In Jazz, it’s called swing; in running it’s called trying not to trip.

Anyway, the thought tonight was in musical development. I started wondering why most “popular” music throughout the ages – rock, R&B, blues, even many hymns – had 2/2 or 4/4 time. The question popped up just as I’d come to a flat, wide section of the trail, and a song had popped into my head, and my feet were providing the bass drum line. Hmmm, go figure – most people used to walk a lot; it’s the rhythm in their heads.

So I started thinking about waltzes. Not sure if it’s accurate, but I associate them kind of with something-teenth century European aristocracy. And I started wondering – maybe they spent lots of time on a horse galloping from place to place. And started hearing and picturing a gallop in my head – front feet, back feet, glide, and hearing how that could work out to be 3/4 time.

I’m sure I’m smoking crack, but it was an interesting thought experiment.

As I came around the point and started heading back to the car, something lifted. I was leaning forward, and somehow, I was running FAST. I did it for a while, and started expecting the usual lung ache, gasping, pounding heart, etc, that I get at this speed, but there was just a nice, measured effort. clearly I had more in the tank. Good stuff.

I’m logging 5 miles for the day since i mowed.

Oh, and it is springtime in Connecticut – ran through some tall grass, and found two deer ticks in the shower.

OH, and to put the icing on the cake: I got a cool, cool, Einstein Brother’s Bagels jersey off of EBay today. Dig the pics:

Bluebird of Happiness

Wasn’t with me on the run today, that’s for sure. 5.2 miles on a windy, windy, sunny day in the 50’s. Out was into the wind and chilly, back was tired, with the wind, and about perfect (aside from the tired). Think I was a little dehydrated – funny how a week off makes you forget about little things like pounding water in the mornings before a lunchtime run. But I made it. I didn’t have to walk any of the hills, but I did take about a minute’s walk break after I crested the long, shallow hill heading up behind the NAPS (Naval Academy Prep School) building. The toughest part after the week off was in not being stretched out enough.

But tomorrow will be better.

I see light at the top of the work hole I’ve dug, which is all good. Took last night off for some canoodling on the couch, and made t-ball practice today. So much fun – it was just the coach and his two kids, and one other girl who’s mom was playing on the playground with her younger kid. So Nate and I played backstop on the basepath, two kids stood on either side of the pitcher’s mound, one kid played first base (t-ball defensive strategy consists of “Catch the ball and throw it to first … Hey, stop looking at the ants!”) while the fourth kid would hit (t-ball offensive strategy – “Hit the ball, drop the bat, and run as fast as you can to first base … No, keep running, don’t stop to look at the ants!”).

Nate (1 year old) thought it was the coolest thing to shuffle along in the base path and occasionally stop to pick up dirt clods. A couple of times he’d imitate the big kids by looking towards home and squatting down, the laughing hysterically. Either that, or he was pooping – when I picked him up to go home, he was stinky.

Good times, good times. My only prayer is that it stays fun for Jake until he decides if he wants to play or not on his own.

OK, back to writing electronic courseware.

By way of clarification

Five being the new three moves me back a couple months to setting and struggling with goals.

Which is good, because I’m making them.

Did 5 miles after work Friday along Burma Road. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t really easy. And it was probably a bit more than 5 miles – I didn’t do the Forerunner, and I didn’t measure it with the car after. But it was for sure past where I’ve turned around in the past with the Forerunner saying 2.5 miles, and time-wise, it was probably pretty close to 6 round trip.

Timing was by iPod – got to love a gadget that’s got my entire record library, all my contacts, a bunch of notes, and a clock synced with an internet time standard every time I plug it into my computer. 25 minutes out, 24 minutes back. The coolest part was that “back” was into the wind, instead of with the wind.

It was a tough run – my legs were really tight from 10 miles in the two days before, and from traveling, but I gutted it out.

Then I get home, and Melissa’s got brown rice, scallops, and bell peppers waiting for me; the boys have both been good since I last saw them on Tuesday, and much is good. Ended up getting the yard mowed this morning before it started raining, and have caved to today being a rest day. I’m hoping I have the gumption to get up tomorrow and run…

Flat

Down in Norfolk for a conference. Traveling last night kept me all wired – I couldn’t quite get to sleep ’til after midnight. Plus, I wasn’t exactly sure where I was, or what the neighborhood was like, or whatever. So I blew off running this morning in favor of an extra couple of hours of sleep.

One of the nice things about the group I was working with today is that it’s somewhat established, and my role is somewhat limited, so I didn’t have to waste time networking or any crap like that at lunch. Found the base gym and WOW. I was over on the bigwig section of the base, with Commander Fleet Forces Command, NATO, COMNAVSUBFOR – more stars than you can see from most cities at night. The gym was no exception. There was a step aerobics course, the locker room was crowded, spacious, and well-lit. Plus, there were really, really plush towels at the desk. Washed with fabric softener, even, I think.

The run wasn’t much to speak of – 5 miles in right around 40 minutes, flat. There’s still something going on with my stride this week. It’s not the effortless gliding I had last week, but it’s not quite plodding or bashing heels. I’m not particularly worried – there’s no pain involved, even though I’m up in mileage/run and mileage/week. But one of the great things about the RBF is knowing that not every run needs to be spectacular – consistency is the key to improvement.

I’ll likely do another 5 tomorrow in Newport, probably up Burma Road to avoid a couple of really tough hills on the Navy base. Saturday, I will try to sneak in 20 miles or so on the bike, and another running loop around River Road on Sunday.

So that’s about it – I’m writing this on MacJournal while I wait for a plane. I really can’t pimp this guy’s stuff enough – I only fear that he’s going to add features. While bad for business, he’s got a product that’s pretty much perfect as is for what I want it to do. Kind of like a spoon, or a fork. Combine the two to make a spork, and the whole thing becomes less useful than the two things were separately.

It’s going to take six hours to get from Norfolk to Providence, BTW. On a good day, you could probably drive it in 7 or so, taking the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (I like that name) and heading up the eastern shore through Jersey. They’re routing me through Pittsburgh, I kid you not. Bleh. Plus, there’s no WiFi in the Norfolk Airport. Hopefully there’ll be something in Pittsburgh.

Wuss

Is what Houston Bill would be calling New England Bill. (New England Bill would counter “lardass”, but that’s neither here nor there)

Why all the harshing? ‘Cause today was hot. Seems like we jumped straight into summer. Lunchtime run was 5 miles in about 43 minutes in a temp of about 80 degrees. I wanted to do the 5.4 that I did last Tuesday, but the relative heat really did a number on me. Blah. Still it’s a 5 mile run at better than a 9 minute pace, so I’ll keep it. ‘Especially since I’ve only got 4 days left to run 15 miles to hit 20 for the week.

Tuesday was a rest day after Monday’s bike ride. As pumped as I was after the ride, I didn’t realize how much it’d taken out of me until I started waking up Tuesday morning. I wasn’t sore, just really, really tired. I grabbed a decent breakfast (coffee and granola bars), and headed out the door. By 10 I was starving. Like crazy hungry. I was hungry all day – must have really tapped into fat stores by pressing past my typical endurance threshold and going about 90 minutes instead of my regular 40. Again, I wasn’t sore, per se, but I was starved. I did avoid the monster, though.

Five is still the new three – today’s run, while tough, was not a huge stretch. Tough, but just right.

Responses: Jon – I do the shorts and jersey for much the same reason I do running shorts and shoes when I run. Good gear takes away at least one excuse. I do not, however, go whole hog for current team kit. Why? ‘Cause I’m cheap. I’ve got a couple of beer jerseys, a UTexas jersey (family connections, not that I went there), and a couple of jerseys from the team I rode with in Houston. I am, however, thinking of picking up a Kappa/Saeco 2004 jersey –
1) It’s got trucker chicks on the sleeves
2) Saeco makes coffee makers. I like coffee
3) I was a Kappa (frat boy) in college
4) Cippolini rode for Saeco. Gilberto Simeoni rode for Saeco. Cunego rode for Saeco.
5) My shiny road bike is a Cannondale
6) Saeco’s not sponsoring the team any more, so it’s like a Houston .45’s or Brooklyn Dodgers jersey.
7) Did I mention they make coffee makers?

Susan rocks. Running to the gym is oh-so-much-cooler than driving. (But driving still beats the snot out of sitting on the couch)

Warren – I’m pretty aggressive about “On your left”-ing as appropriate. And as a rule, I avoid “multi-use” paths when cycling. Multi-use is f’n hazardous, especially when you’re talking orders of magnitude differences in speed such as between bikes and runners/walkers especially. My gripe was about peds randomly wandering off the sidewalk onto an actual street, like in a downtown kind of area. In the case of your running group, a stick to the spokes (of the rear wheel for safety’s sake) would likely be appropriate if there was no warning.

Chris – sucks to be you :). Lance? I’m really not disappointed that he’s retiring. He won the Tour six times. As I see it, he had two choices: retire, or go completely psycho this year and next and try to do a year in the mold of Eddy Merckx, trying to win everything from the spring Classics to the Giro, the Tour, and the Vuelta. While I am completely amazed at his drive and success, and could care two shakes if he’s really a jerk or not, and admire his contributions both to the cancer community and cycling in general, Armstrong’s continued presence in cycling brings the words of Kevin Costner in Bull Durham to mind: “Strikeouts are boring, and besides that they’re facist. Throw some ground balls. They’re more democratic.” What that means, I don’t know, but it seems appropriate.

Tyler – Frankly, this breaks my heart. First, it took the USADA way to long to rule on the case. Second, there’s a decent amount of dissent to his 2 year suspension. BUT on the whole issue of doping, I’m completely in favor of failing really conservative. IMO, it’s better to ban some innocents with freaky blood from sport than to risk letting some cheats through. Yeah. Register all the mutants. In any case, it’s not like sport is something that requires equal access – by definition, almost everyone in the world is excluded from being a professional athlete by some genetic reason. I’d still like to think that Tyler is innocent – I cannot fathom someone making as big a deal out of charitable foundations as he or Lance do, hold himself out as a poster child for youth racing, etc, and risk staining all the people he touches by cheating. Call me naive, but people that evil just do not exist in my America.

Lee – Sorry for leaving you out. Warren’s really got me thinking about the whole ped thing and wondering if I’ve been one of those riders who turn people off from cycling. And I really hope not.

He’s completely right, though, that the responsibility for looking out and avoiding conflict really does fall on the cyclist. I don’t know that you need baseball cards in your spokes, or a bell or horn, but do be vocal early. And I’d even recommend taking some time to learn how to jump curbs, ride on grass/gravel/dirt, and even practice taking a dive off the bike at a decent speed to avoid hitting pedestrians.

TTFN!