Wednesday, April 30, 2008

bande affectueuse de peintres de nature

So you realize that it was not all fun and games these past two weeks, some artwork for you!

Be amazed...at my Composition...."bande affectueuse de peintres de nature" ( thats "nature loving painters tape" for those of you that are not soooo Savy ;)

Back to Training

Well my marathon active recovery is now OVER! and I am glad for it. It was nice to be able to sit around and relax a bit at first but I have to say It was also kind of nerve racking. It was a change in my routine. I actually enjoy running long and going out for rides. Its a chance for me to work out the problems of the day in my head.

It was not wasted time, I did get allot done around the house. Painted the living-room, which included teetering on a 20 ft ladder to paint the Cathedral ceilings.

I also did a little research on the Mind games we play with ourselves during races. Interesting stuff, with allot of different approaches to dealing with it. I still have to filter out all that I learned to see what they mean to me and how I can apply what I learned to my own training and racing.

As if another sign that its time to return to training, the sun is now out at 5:30AM, thus opening up the mornings for more outdoor activities like riding. Kewl!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Cow Bells

I was searching for Cow bells so that I could properly cheer on the RwP team during the Gold Coast Tri and came across this hilarious skit from SNL


Saturday, April 19, 2008

Self Supported Marathon- Done!

Well this morning I finally did the Marathon. It was HARD. Started out quite nice, kept an excellent pace in the first half. Phil came buy and did a half mary with me and ran the first half which helped allot because he helped me keep a good pace on the first half which was a long gradual hill for 13.1 miles basically. So for the first half we kept a good 8.10 pace for the first 13.1 miles.

Turning around I think we maintained close to that pace also at first. Phil peeled off at around mile 16. I kept that pace going for about another 30 minutes I think but at around mile 18 I started to feel the miles and started to slow down. Then at around mile 22/23 I did not hit the wall. I slammed into it and crumbled down in a heap on the ground.

If I had displayed what was going on in my head physically I would have been sniveling in a fetal position in the middle of the path, with little children running up to me pointing saying:

"Mommy! Mommy! look this man has buggers streaming out of his nose!" or something humiliating like that. And of course the mother would be saying something like:

"its not nice to point at people who are having a physical and mental breakdown Honey, I am sure the man will wipe his nose when he regains his composure" .

The thought of that happening kept me going stoically.

None the less I went from keeping an 8:30 pace to something like 10 min miles. There was a hill I had to go up and that just plain did me in. I decided to walk around a minute and see if I could gather some strength to push past this. It helped and briefly I was going back to a 9 min pace.

In the end I finished in 3:44:10 around a 8:30 pace. I am happy with that. Made my first goal. Learned allot in the process. Can't beat that!

Lessons Learned
There was definitely some lesson learned especially when doing a self supported event. For example bring an abundance of fluids not just "enough". I had figured that through past planning that my fuel belt I could carry enough for me do do 13.1. SO at the halfway point I put a bottle filled with Accelerade, which would be enough to refill my fuel belt supplies. Well I did not calculate that on race day I would be running harder than on a training run and thus would be thirstier than when training. so I found myself without water of fuel on the last 5 miles because I had sucked down everything by then. I know that probably played a role in my hitting the wall so hard.

Also I discovered my footpod was waaaay off. Which for this run did little to affect me because I had mapped it out and also conformed distance with Phil who ran the first half with me. He had his GPS. But what it did mean is that did not cover the appropriate distances in training. My Polar at the end of the race had me running a little under 30 miles, for an actual distance of 26.2. So what this means is that when i thought I was doing a 20 mile training run, it was closer to 18. Which means that I did not train as well as I thought I did. Piece of crap!

I knew it was a little off I just did not imaging it being THAT much off. I had calibrated it once before, I guess I need to do it again.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Cycling Vids

Well with yet another day of no workouts as I "conserve and build up the nervous energy that will explode during my marathon on Sunday. I am driven to Youtube for some great sports flicks!

Hockey meets cycling!


A real loser!


Sore loser- check out the quick move second placeputs on the winner

Monday, April 14, 2008

Self Supported Marathon

This Saturday I am finally doing my self supported marathon. the map of the run is below. For the sake of making it feel "official". This is the inaugural "North County Trails marathon". Its basically an out and back on

Here are my goals:

I will be happy with a total 3:45:00

I will be ecstatic with a 3:30:00

Basically I am starting from Millwood and running North for 13.1 miles and then turning around. I will be planting a water bottle at( or around) the turning point. I will be carrying my own fuel on my fuel belt.



Sunday, April 13, 2008

Taper...let the head games begin

Well for the past week I have been on Taper mode in preparation for my upcoming Self supported marathon. This is key for helping your body recover and heal from the massive amounts of training you do for a race. The idea being that your body will be fresh and energized on race day. This is good. The downside is that tapers in general seem to universally suck. There is a game your head plays on you it goes like this:

Your head: " cutting back this much for SOOOOO long!! You will lose ALL of your Fitness!!!!"

You say : "NNOOOooooooooo"

Your head: " didn't that walk feel so much a harder!!? Your losing it!!"

You say "NOoooooooo!!"

Your head: "Its not too late! You can save yourself! Go out right now and do 15 miles!!..........UP Hills!!........Really Steep Hills!!!"


Your head: "Hmmmm...but Coach says I should take it easy...But what hurt can ONE set of hill repeats on a 20% grade hill do? Who would know? .....NO!!!! MUST.......STICK.....TO ......PLAN!!!!!! I MUST TAPER!!!!"

And so on and so forth.

Very dramatic isn't it? If you put a microphone in my head you would hear lots of screaming and sobbing. It magnified with the echo because there is lots of empty space due to the fact that little else going on in there ;)

Its hard. But there is one positive. For the next few weeks I will have time to pay attention to the wife and to projects around the house. Thus I am practicing my paint stroke instead out on my BRAND NEW Cervelo practicing my pedal stroke :(

Oh well.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

20 Miles

Its 11:20 PM. I just finished my last 20 miler before tapering for my self supported marathon. Its been a hectic weekend, thus the late night run. Well the run went well, but there is on thing to note, for anyone who will listen...don't run after a heavy pasta dinner.....yech!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Sucky Swim day

OK so my plan was to do 3300 meters today. I get to the pool and I encounter my first obstacle: Every lane was taken. It seems nowadays they have kids classes at all hours of the day. I seldom go there when there isn't a class. Anyhow, this old guy who I have seen around before, tells me that I can swim in with him. I did not want to be rude and tell him I wanted to go in the other lane where the guy was swimming pretty fast. I hesitated and he says "Wah?" , "Oh nothing" So he sees my little Gail Bernhardt Swim workout Book, and asks me what it is, so I tell him it has allot of swim drills and workouts for Triathletes, so he looks at me and says

"Oh your one of those, I only Tri women"

Wise guy ( but kinda funny)

Anyhow, I get in the lane but this guy would not stop talking! I mean I am taking my time putting on my goggles, my swim cap, adjusted the goggles, made sure to tuck the straps under the swim cap.....figuring at some point he will stop and continue with his swim. Nope.

all the while I am waiting, this guy is "yada,yada,yada the Alcohol lobby is too strong... yada yada"

In my head I am just thinking "SHUT UP!!!!!!"

So clearly a change in strategy was required.

So next, I was trying to find a way I could intercede and say something meaningful and yet finite. Nothing...I came up with nothing.

SO while he was talking away I was thinking -would it be rude to just start swimming while he is talking to me? Maybe he wouldn't notice.

I mean he just talked..... did not even care to hear about anything I had to say. Just kept on going "yada yada politicians can't be trusted, I am a lawyer ...I know! yada yada Life is too short."

So anyways Finally I was driven to a point I could take it no longer, time was ticking. When he stopped to catch a breath I threw in "Ok anyhow nice talking to you but I have to leave soon, so time is short" and I just dove in before he had a chance to say anything.

I decided the wise thing was to do an extended session of laps doing flip-turns so I did not have to come out of the water. I knew he was waiting there like a verbal shark waiting to pounce! If I just popped my head out once he would assault me with a barrage of conversation.

I got lucky, he chose a new mark, the poor sap that was in the other lane, so he left my lane to talk to him. I stopped on the other side of the pool and could see the other guy just nodding his head, and the old guy just talking away.

Anyhow, I was now well into 5-600 meters of the warm up when whadda ya know? The frigging fire alarm goes off! At first the High School Life guard was like " I don't know what that is!" But when we peeked out of the pool we saw the Gym was basically empty. Which was a good sign that we should leave.

At this point I decided its just time to call it a night. Tomorrows a new day.