A Perfect Day

First, this morning. After the demands in the comments for tan line pics [what kind of sick freaks are you people? i like it.] here's the dreaded right leg. It's still pretty burned, and you can see the huge white back of my knee, and if you look closely you can see the sock tan line at the very bottom.




And of course, when Bigun saw us taking pictures of my leg, she had to get in on the action.




I think yesterday might have been the most perfect day I've had in a very long time. I got an early start to work thanks to someone else that scheduled an 8 am meeting with a client. And they approved this project I've been working on for 2 months! We finally got to take this thing live. Then I got together with the other manager for a product outline and it went way better than I expected. And thanks to the early start, I was able to knock off work about 5 pm, which doesn't usually happen.


Then I got out in the garden with the girls and we got some of the green beans planted. We sunk all of the pole beans that are going to grow up the fence. And we found peas growing nicely, there are hundreds of pods on the pea plants. Some of the plants are about 3' tall now, and some are only a foot. but they are loaded. And if that wasn't enough, we got the first harvest of the season:




The girls were picking and eating big red strawberries that are finally ripe. Last year the squirrels ate most of our strawberries, they seem to be leaving things alone this year which is great!


Morgan came through in a big way last night too. My plan was to hit the gym for some treadmill intervals before dinner. But I blew off the run. Morgan's girlfriend is graduating from law school on thursday, she goes to school somewhere in Mississipi, and is moving back to Greenville on friday. We can't wait to have her back in town. But, she has season tickets to the Greenville Drive, a Red Sox farm team here in our minor league town. Morgan was too tired to use the tickets last night, so he gave us the tickets AND offered to babysit the kids while we went to the game!!! Kelley was incredibly paranoid about Morgan being able to get the kids to bed sucessfully, but it wasn't a problem. We grabbed some quick dinner (Firehouse Subs) and headed downtown for the game. The Drive won 7 - 2, the field is modeled after Fenway Park and one of our players hit a home run over the green monster. It was a really fun game, and the kind of night out that parents of toddlers NEVER get to have. I even had a hot dog and a couple of large beers. ah yea, nothing better than drinking outside on a cool summer night.

*** Biggest Liar spoiler alert ***
After the game we watched the finale of the Biggest Liar. I can't believe Helen won! She looked unhealthy thin, down to 117 lbs. Mike was great, and Ron suprised me too. I don't think he's been 226 lbs since he was about 12 years old. Jerry winning the at home prize was completely unexpected. He really lost the lb's after only a couple of weeks on the ranch. But he's only 2 years older than my dad, and he looks old enough to be my dad'd dad. It's odd. Still, he's gotten healthy and added years to his life, and that's the point. Tara is still my favorite, and she was only 6 lbs short of winning the whole thing. amazing. It was a great season overall.

Blaine and Dane showed off their medals, they did a half marathon, full marathon, and half ironman in 3 straight weeks after leaving the ranch and want to go ironman now? Good luck to them. At least they weren't showing off the medals from the marathon BL lied to us about. sub 4 hours my ass. These guys really seemed to be enjoying the endurance training, so more power to them.


And since a great day has to be followed by a rough day (apparently) Bigun woke us up at 2 am being scared of the dark. And this morning I overslept until about 8:15 so I'm already way behind. And Bigun has her first ever dentist appt this morning, and we can't find a babysitter for Evil Genius. When you let Evil loose in a dentist office, there's no telling what kind of mischief will ensue.


Happy hump day!

18 in the country

We went to visit Kelley's mom on Lake Murray in the middle of nowhere SC for the weekend. We didn't bring the camera, but I wish I had some pics. It ended up being a beautiful weekend to be at the lake. Her sister and our niece also came down, and it's always fun to visit with them too.

I got in an 18 mile run on saturday with some ups and downs. Really, they live in the middle of the country so I was going to go out 3 miles, turn around for a 6 mile lap and do that 3 times. Turns out, it's exactly 3 miles to the stop sign. Yea, they are that far out in the country. Being on a lake, it's all really flat compared to here. But I discovered it was mostly uphill to the stop sign, and mostly downhill coming back to the house.

I forgot to bring the shuffle, so I did it all with no tunes (DOH!!) It was just me and the cows. Literally, on these state maintained public roads I saw 2 deer, about 50 cows, several dozen horses, and only 6 cars. I saw some really cool stuff that I couldn't take pictures of. So it's really your loss. But I was thinking about RBR the whole time. She's always posting pics of cows on her crazy runs. And she ended up with some weird tan lines from her last marathon, more on that later. The numbers from garmin:

lap 1: 6 miles, 1:05:23, 10:54 per mile
lap 2: 6 miles, 1:13:31, 12:14 per mile
lap 3: 6 miles, 1:18:28, 13:0 per mile
Total: 18.0 miles, 3:37:23, 12:04 per mile

So for those of you who put together a 3:48 marathon or faster, I say good job. This long run kicked me all over the place. It's not exactly a negative split. But it was over 90 degrees and very sunny for the whole run. So I really had to manage my hydration. My last 18 mile run was much faster than that. but that's ok. It's done now.

Thanks to the heat and unexpected sunshine, I ended up with some very funny tan lines. I wore chopat braces on both knees, and they left a funny white stripe on the back of my legs, while my calfs are quite burned. Of course I had the low socks on, so my feet are pasty white now, and both sets of family's had quite a laugh about it. There again, a nod and a wink to RBR. She recently chaperoned a prom in sandals with the bike sock tan lines.

Yesterday was just a lazy time hanging out at the lakehouse. I wanted to get a swim in Lake Murray, but it just didn't happen. might still be a little cold for that.

We came back to Greenville and had dinner with my folks and Morgan last night. Kelley was craving Mellow Mushroom pizza, so we picked up a couple and headed over. The kids sleep pattern is all screwy thanks to that much travel, but we all had a good time anyway. Mom came through the surgery fine, she has a little splint on her nose that is coming off friday. My grandmother got moved back to her assisted living apartment, and is quite happy to be home again.

So all is well here. Well, except it's monday again. have a great week!

10 miles and 10k?

Well, I missed the bike time trial last night. Working from home I get flexible hours. Yesterday I started early so I could knock off about 4:30 to make it to the bike race on time. But it was one of "those" days where task x had to be finished. I didn't end up finishing until 6:15. Sometimes that's just how it goes in programming, you have to make it work right today or else. The good news it I got it working, and I've been banging my head against this wall for 3 weeks now. Thank you, javascript.

Needless to say, I was pissed at having to miss the race but grateful to still have a job. So after we got the kids to bed I went on to the gym for my normal thursday night brick. But this time I had anger and speed on my side.

And it freaking worked!!!! I still can't believe it. My target for the bike race was 10 miles in under 30 minutes. On the stationary bike at the gym, I did 10 miles in 29:38 FINALLY!!!! I busted through that 20 mph wall I've been fighting at for the last couple of months. HAHA, TAKE THAT SPEED! yea baby, I was pretty thrilled with that.

And since it wouldn't be a bike/run brick without the running, now it was time to head to the treadmill. The training plan called for 6 miles tempo. So I walked for the first minute while I found the Cleveland basketball game on the tv, then turned it up to a 6.3 speed. I was working on finding a mid-foot strike and shorter stride, not easy for someone with my long legs. Now everyone out there everywhere who runs wants to clear a 10k in under an hour. Some people are fast and do this easily, others have to speed up to it. I held the 6.3 speed through 5.5 miles, then this 10k goal crept into the brain. I've never done a 10k race, just 5k's in triathlons and half marathon races. And here was Wes in the brain too, commenting yesterday that I could always push hard for 25 minutes on the bike. So I started inching the speed up, and I ended up at 7.0 for the last couple of minutes. BAM! 10k done, 6.2 miles in 59:22!!!!! A completely unexpected goal was proven and shattered. Nice.

Also today marks one month (June 7th) until my first olympic distance triathlon. That's a 1500m swim, 24 miles on the bike, and a 10k run. I'm working up to a 24/6.2 brick in a couple of weeks, and I don't have any more races until that one. Yesterday I finally got around to making travel plans. Turns out, one of Kelley's cousins (Leigh) lives about 15 minutes from the race site! Who knew? The race is in Greenwood, SC about an hour and a half from where we are. Leigh lives in Saluda, SC with a husband and 3 kids. I knew the towns were kind of close. But she pulls a camper out there all the time. And Leigh is shooting a rodeo (she's a photographer) in GA that weekend so we get to stay in her empty house. And here I was ready for a hotel room.

Then a scant 6 days later I have this little hillbilly marathon coming up. In a small town in Kentucky, there aren't that many hotels. In fact, the entire town was booked up already. Every single room was already taken from every hotel. I finally found a room for about $40 a night in the next town over, about 30 minutes away. That's going to be a comfortable night's sleep before the marathon starts at 7 am. My last hope is a hotel that's still under construction in the same town as the marathon. they put my name on a list, and will be calling everyone on the list once the reservation system comes online june 1st. marathon is june 13th. Cutting it close I know, but that's all there is now. I should not have waited so long.

Today I have to make reservations for the B2B in november. Not waiting again!

Have a great weekend! happy mothers day to all you moms. My mom was in a car accident last friday, and today she's having a little surgery to repair a broken nose from the accident. She's really ok, and will be fine after the surgery. And saturday my grandmother is moving from her physical therapy/nursing home back to the assisted living apartment a month after breaking her hip. So I am incredibly glad that my mom and her mom are getting well again. But it also means they won't be up for a big mother's day lunch or anything. I've got to get in an 18 mile long run on saturday, and we're going for a visit to kelley's mom. Have a great weekend!

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Update:

the results from the bike race last night is up on the spinner's web site, and there were 11 guys in my age group. My time would have put me ahead of 2 of them. And overall, just head of the guy who finished 69th out of 75 dudes. So I would have actually beaten people if I could have made the race and my goal. dang.

Assessments and Bike Race

I did the Tri Power monthly assessments yesterday. I also got some time on the bike trainer, but that's nothing special. I'm a week late on the assessments, should have been done last wednesday. Here was last month's results:

Pushups (in 60 sec): 15
Wall Sit (sec): 49
Flex Arm Hang: 20
Side Plank: 29
Side Plank Bent Knee: 54
Prone Plank: 35
Extensor Chain: 1:12
Core Strength: 40%

Everything besides pushups and core strength is measured in seconds. That was on 3/24, and here's the results from yesterday 5/6:

Pushups: 17
Wall Sit: 51
Flex Arm Hang: 27
Side Plank: 36
Side Plank Bent Knee: 1:01
Prone Plank: 40
Extensor Chain: 1:17
Core Strength: 70%

The extensor chain is a measure of lower back strength, and I'm really pleased with that time. It's good to see the improvement in the planks too, that means I'm gaining more stabilizer muscle strength. Pushups and the flex arm hang I thought would be higher, I've been working those a lot more lately. But, I did miss 2 weeks in April thanks to that stupid pollen problem. The core strength at 70% is really cool. I didn't expect to see that at all. Looks like the iron gym and situps are really starting to pay off!

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Bike Race

Tonight is the first time trial bike race put on by the Greenville Spinners for this year. They do a series of 4 TT's, once a month. We've had some quite voracious thunderstorms for the last 4 days, even a couple of tornado's touching down. So I have no idea if the race will go off as scheduled tonight. But registration is open from 5 pm to 5:45, and the first rider leaves at 6 pm sharp. One rider leaves every minute after that.

The course is a 10 mile out and back, I think it stays on Perimiter rd which is nice and flat. Perimiter rd is a 7.2 mile loop around an air strip, so I don't know why they didn't just make the race one loop. But it's a time trial, so there is no peleton, no group of racers or a pack to pull away from. Just one guy (or girl) at a time racing against the clock. When everyone is done they compare the times and post the results online. Last year for the first race there was only 2 guys in my 30-39 age group. So I'm hoping for a top 3 finish this time. Seeing as how it's my first bike race ever, I have no idea what to expect or how well I'll do.

My always constant speed goal is 20 mph, so for a 10 mile ride, I'm going to try and beat 30 minutes. It's only 10 miles, so I'm just going to go as hard and fast as I can. No need to save anything for the endurance here, it's straight out muscle pushing. I'll take the little camera and try and get some pics. Last year's winners came in around 20 minutes.

Who the freak holds a race at 6 pm on a thursday? how strange is that? so this whole thing is predicated on being able to knock off from work about 4:30 today to get dressed, loaded up, and on the road. Donaldson center is about 45 minutes from the house, so if I can't leave until 5 I'm not going to make the registration in time. And if the weather doesn't cooporate then it's all moot anyway. I see no need to ride 10 miles in the rain just to get a time in. So we'll see what happens.

Thanks for all the smoothie advice! That's great stuff, I'm going to try as many as I can.

Smoothie

What do you put in your smoothies? I'm going on a smoothie binge for a while, and I'm already running out of combinations.

The good folks at Oikos sent me some coupons for free greek yogurt. Unfortunately, my local grocer only carries the plain, unflavored kind. This stuff has a great consistency, is loaded with protein, and has got to be one of the best runner's fuel around. But I can't take the flavor of plain yogurt by itself, so I've been adding it into smoothies. Typically, I'll throw in some Oikos (great stuff), ice, a banana, some blueberries, a splash of orange juice, and maybe some peanut butter for consistency and sugar for flavor. You know, so it's not quite so tart. They are coming out good, but I'm ready to try some different stuff in there. Any ideas?

I should also note that my blueberry and raspberry patches in the garden are loaded with fruit. It won't ripen for another month or two, but there will be loads of fruit for smoothies later in the summer. My blackberries are covered with blooms too, and the cherry tree is setting a lot of fruit as well. I planted all of those last year knowing it takes 2 years before they bear fruit. So this is really cool. And this year I put in several other blueberry and boisenberry plants, so next year we should get fruit from those guys.

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I made it to the gym last night for some speedwork. Did 3 x 1600 intervals at 6.8, 6.9, and 7.0 speeds. With warm up and cool down, total was 4 miles in 39 minutes.

Dirty Race Report

The St Francis Hospital Mud Run was Saturday, and we took off right on time at 3:59 PM. The race was incredibly dirty, there were 34 marine obstacles we had to traverse. The first one was a low crawl under a net through a 2' deep mud pit, about 12' long. So 20 yards from the start you are covered in mud. New friend Jenny ran the race too, and has more details about the obstacles in her race report.


There was a ton of 6' walls to jump over, lots of balance and crawling challenges, even one where you had to crawl on your back over some tree roots. that wasn't exactly comfortable. The toughest I think was the cargo net, a 18' tall rope wall that you had to climb up, go over a beam, then climb back down.


But the fun parts of the race can really be explained in the pictures.

Kelley and I being fierce before the race. We're mentally getting all military. Yea, we're tough.


Michael and I before the race. Tough? more like drunk. I thought we had a before picture of all four of us, but can't find it today. Our friend Deb ran the race with us, and her husband took the pictures where we're all muddy. Deb put on a sheer display of willpower to complete the course. She's the one who talked Kelley into running the marathon, Deb finished Myrtle Beach in 8:09. This was her payback, and we finished as a team in 1:40.


If I never run across (or have to jump over) one of these 6' walls again that's ok. We had to clear the wall, sometimes just by jumping, sometimes by boosting our teamates, sometimes by brute force just throwing people over the wall. There was maybe 5 or 6 of these on the course.


Here's one of the other walls we had to go through, but that's not us in the picture. This wall has a rope and 2x4 footholds. The running parts were all trail running, and you would just go for it until you came across the next obstacle.



Here's the four of us coming into the final couple of obstacles near the finish line.

Here's a 4' deep mud pit, leading to a mud wall we had to get over. After this, we had to get over an 8' wall. Deb didn't make it over the 8' wall, and took a pretty hard fall. I was pretty worried, but she seemed ok.


Kelley and Deb coming out of the mud, onto the hump.


After the 8' wall, 2 people had to piggyback carry the other 2 people across the finish line. Here I'm carrying Michael (did I mention he weighs a good 60 lbs less than me?) and we're happy to be finished. It started raining on us with about 30 minutes left in the race. Didn't get a good finish line pic of Kelley and Deb.

Here's the four dirty happy finishers. That's me, Deb, Kelley and Michael. Total race was 4 miles, took us 1:40 to complete the course. The overall winners only took about 35 minutes, the winners in our division needed about 45 minutes. It was a fun race, and a great way to spend a rainy saturday afternoon.



They advised wearing pants, and Kelley and Deb were smart enough to actually do that. It was quite hot out there, and I didn't want the weight of long pants. But my knees took the brunt of the damage, as you can see. Not exactly sexy and silky smooth anymore. All of that crawling through the mud took its toll. My elbows/forearms are scratched up too, but not that bad.


The garden is coming together nicely. All of the tomatoes are planted (16 plants), and I got 2 cucumber and a watermelon planted as well. The space where you can still see dirt is going to have corn and green beans. I'm going to have the pole beans growing up the fence, and bush beans filling in the space in front of the fence. Last year we got an equal crop from both types of growth, and it worked out really well. I still need to add some more ground vines (cantaloupe, pumpkin, etc.) but we're really close to having everything planted. The non-dark-brown stuff is wheat straw we used as mulch.


And in the ornamental beds my roses have started blooming! They are really pretty this year, and just loaded with blooms. I've only got 3 bushes, and they've got 14 buds/blooms working. very cool!

Hope you all had a great weekend. I've got some catching up to do, and I'm still pretty sore from the mud run. It left me hurting in places I didn't expect. All part of the fun, I guess.

Brick - End of April - Race Preview

First the brick. I really wanted to end April with a bang. And it was time for a thursday night brick anyway, so I figured I would make it a long one. You know I always have a goal to keep 20 mph on the bike, weather stationary or road bike. Well last night I came SO CLOSE!!! When that clock rolled to 60 minutes, I was sitting on 19.75 miles, a stupid quarter mile away! Man, that is close. I ended up getting 20 miles in 61 minutes, and my legs felt pretty strong.

Then I refilled the water bottles, and moved back to the treadmill. Now this is what really amazes me. I would love for someone else to try this just to know that it doesn't only happen to me. Typically, when I just walk onto the treadmill I keep the speed around 6.0 - 6.2, and I'll slow down to a walk when I need to which is usually every 2 or 3 miles. I also walk a warm up for a minute or three. But when I'm coming off of a hard bike session like that, the run always seems easier.

Last night I walked for just over a minute, and did the entire first mile at a 6.4 speed, then did 4 more miles at 6.3 with no walking. Total was 5 miles in 48:24, which is considerably longer and faster than the rest of my recent runs. So strange. So somebody else try going hard on the bike for about 20 minutes, then go for a run. Let me know if it feels easier than just starting out for a run cold.

Now a 20/5 bike/run brick is no joke. Think I'm ready for the oly tri (24 mile bike/6.2 mile run) coming up in a month? I think I'm going to be just fine. The bike burned 678 calories, and the run burned 793 calories. That's 1471 total. And to kick off the night, I weighed in and I was down 3 pounds. I've been trying to be more careful about what I ate during the pollen fiasco, and it's really nice to see it pay off. I also did some yoga yesterday morning.

So what does that mean for April?

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April Totals

1 race (TOA Triathlon, Pics)
750meters swimming
62.5 miles on the bike
43.9 miles running
5 hours strength training
2.5 hours yoga

Considering I lost a couple of weeks to pollen, I am pretty pleased with the month. I need more swimming, duh. But the bike and run totals are ok. I sure could use more running, marathon is only 6 weeks away. But I can live with those totals. It's time to do the Tri Power assessments again, and I just didn't get around to it on wednesday.

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Race Preview

Tomorrow is the Mud Run. This is a 4 mile course with military obstacles. Michael is coming up from Charleston to run it with us, and we recruited our friend Deb to join in too. I don't know what the obstacles are, but I do know there's a 10 ft high wall we have to climb. And I know we're going to get dirty.

Our start time is 3:59 PM? WTF? Who starts a race at 4 pm? They are staggering the starts to let the faster teams through the obstacles first so there will hopefully be less waiting to get through an obstacle. We're in the C group which is supposed to be the fun, slow, fat people. So we should be in good company. If you watch the Biggest Liar, Phil and Amy from last season are running this race too, but I'm sure they will be in an earlier group. And there's a rumor floating around the neighborhood that Tara from this season is in Greenville waiting and working with Phil and Amy for the finale in a couple of weeks. She's been spotted walking around the mall and in a few local gyms according to my neighbors. So I'm hoping she's roped into doing this race tomorrow too.

In other race news, there are only 34 spots left for the Beach 2 Battleship half iron distance race that I'm doing in november. There are already tons of bloggers signed up, but if you're on the fence about a half I would suggest you get in on this one while you still can. Come and hang out with your friends! The full iron distance has a few more open spots, but get in while you can. They are both going to sell out pretty soon.

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Have a great weekend! I know the Eugene Marathon is this weekend in Oregon, and Sarah Bowen Shea (a Runner's World writer and blogger) is running it. Good luck SBS! Who else is running this one? joyRuN is gunning a marathon this weekend too. Good luck girl! And Amber is doing her first half marathon on sunday in vancouver. rock it out, Amber. You're going to love it.