The August Month

WTH? So this is the first post for August since I put July's totals up. I even had a cycling event and didn't post anything before or put up a race report after? Now that's just odd. True, the event sucked, but it's still the first time in years that I haven't put a race report up within a few days. Just strange.


I have been training a LOT this month. Most of it's been inside stuff, some have been quite long. Some workouts totally blew and some felt like I could keep going forever. I've also had a lot of time with Kelley and the kids, and overall a much better month than I was expecting. There was some time in the repair shop though.


BikeFest = trouble. August 7th I was supposed to be riding a metric century, but it got kind of nuts. I've been riding since 2008 and never had a flat tire. 5 miles into this 62 mile ride I got my cherry popped. And by cherry I mean my back tire. I was doing pretty good for the first five miles though. Of course I had no spare tube and no idea how to change a tire anyway. So the SAG wagon came and took me up to the first aide station where the on-site mechanic was.


This was about 25 miles into the course, and we had to stop several other times to help others. That experience by itself really makes me want to volunteer to ride a course in a sag van. It was so cool getting to see the other riders and help out when we could. very cool


The onsite mechanic was kind of an ass though. It was supposed to be a $6 charge for a new tube, and turned into a $25 tune-up. By this point, I was at the back of the pack. Most of the riders had already cleared out, including the guys I started with (from work). The people on the route were the back of the packers, and they had 20 more miles on the legs than I did. So I started at mile 25 and rode well. It was so cool to be passing people in bunches. I wasn't in a paceline, I was passing whole pacelines like they were standing still. That was fantastic.


Then the $25 tuneup came back to bite me. Actually, going up a hill I shifted into the biggest gear in the rear cassette. The plastic disc that keeps the chain from rubbing the spokes (called the dork disc lol) got caught in the shifter. It then shredded, bent, and caught the chain and rear deraillieur and flipped the whole thing upside down. So now the rear der is on top of the back gears instead of below them, the chain is twisted around and the back tire won't roll.


I made it a total of 30 miles. 5, then a flat, then 25 more. The entire set of pacelines that I just blew past came right back past me again. I was just stuck on the side of the road waiting on the sag wagon again. I swear cyclists are the nicest people you will ever meet. I even had cars with bikes on the back that were not associated with BikeFest or the Tarwheels at all stop to see if I needed anything. I got tired of waiting on the sag wagon, and wrestled my chain free to let the wheel turn again. I then walked (in road cycling shoes, not an easy task) towards the next aide station. This is when my buddy Kyle (who was 89 miles into the 100 mile route at that point) even stopped to see if he could do anything. Eventually a volunteer for the race found me and gave me a lift.


I did call Kelley from the side of the road. We couldn't find a babysitter for the night, so she stayed home and I was riding this one solo anyway. So she packed up both kids and drove the 45 minutes into Hillsborough to get me. Of course Bigun threw up three times on the drive out there. She had to bring cash so I could pay the on-site mechanic (he held my car keys as collateral). He even tried to sell me a new rear der when I went back to pay him! what a jerk. Paid up and got the hell out of there.


I ended up taking the Jamis into the shop too, it had a series of very small repairs needed that came up to about a c-note. Took Roberta the Cannondale to several shops about the rear der and ended up leaving her at the shop I bought her from back in Greenville SC for $151. Some tuneup. So BikeFest totally blew. Too bad, it was a great route. I'd gladly do it again next year. But I've never had a DNF like that, mechanical failure. boooooooooo.

The Jamis to show where the parts should be on the back of the bike. See that thing hanging down and keeping the chain at bay?





Roberta post muck-up. The hanging down part is now up. and the chains is all twisted around everywhere in lots of places it shouldn't be.


I had an awesome workout on Sunday. Started out with 60 laps in the pool. The swim felt fluid, but I'm still trying to get my groove back after taking the time off for the tattoo. My form was kind of choppy, but it was still fun. Then I went upstairs to the cardio cinema and rode the stationary bike for an hour and forty-five minutes while the new GI Joe movie was playing. The movie kind of stunk, but I was glad to get the time on the bike. Could have gone 2 hours solid but I was starting to get hungry. So it was time to head downstairs and get on the treadmill. Ran 4 miles with relative ease. Still hungry, but I took a gel before starting. I could have run longer, I was just trying to cover miles LSD style. Another good run ruined by poo.

The Patriots half ironman is only three saturday's away. I am feeling prepared, but you never know what will happen until you really get out there. Sunday's brick is a great start, but I need more long workouts like this. I was planning on doing at least two 60 mile bike rides, with one of them being the BikeFest. With BikeFest blown and the bike still in the shop the second 60 isn't looking much better than the first.

We are adding a new race to the schedule too! I'm very excited about this one. The Biggest Loser is putting on a 5k in Myrtle Beach! Kelley and I are both running it. Being a BL event it is timed, but the goal is to finish. There are no age group awards. Trainer Bob Harper is going to be greeting people at the finish line, and there will be other contestants hanging around for photo ops. Of course NBC is going to be there, and it's going to air sometime in November, I suppose on an episode of BL. Race is September 25th, come on down and run it if you're a fan of the show. Maybe we'll end up on national TV!

July? What July?

July was a wild month. I had my 35th birthday, got my first tattoo, finally got into the Triangle Sprint Triathlon, and hit 2 miles of swimming for the first time. The specs:

Swim: 5.7 miles total, 5 swims
Bike: 208.5 miles, 9 rides
Run: 27.8 miles, 6 runs
Strength: 1 hour, 4 workouts
Yoga: 1 hour, 2 workouts

WHADDUP!!?!?!!? Remember June? that hot piss poor month?

Swim: 3.85 miles, 5 swims
Bike: 130 miles, 6 rides
Run: 16 miles, 4 runs
Strength: 1 hour, 3 workouts
Yoga: 30 minutes, 1 workout

Yea, let's just go ahead and double that volume for July. 5.7 miles in the pool and (and?) my first month riding over 200 miles without a century ride? You've got to be kidding me. The swimming I can understand thanks to the 2 mile target. That means I've completed all of the basic distances (separately) of an ironman. The increased bike milage is in prep for the metric century next weekend and the Patriots half in september. I'm still more concerned about the bike leg of Ironman than anything else.

I do still have to get back into the routine of doing my tri power workouts and yoga regularly. I really miss yoga these days. More running would be nice too. I need to watch my sleep more, so that I can get up earlier and hit the strength and stretch parts of this balanced workout plan with some consistency.

Foreshadowing for August: I hate august. It's the suffering we have to go through to make it into the cool bliss of autumn. Here in the deep south, August means heat and humidity. It's going to be over 90 degrees too many days (1 day is too many), and the humidity will make the air as thick as soup. I've got to stay hydrated, keep my weight/nutrition in check, and workout inside as much as possible. seriously. you can barely walk outside right now.

August will end with football. And this makes the wait worthwhile. Come on football!

Dropped the Duece

I must admit that one of the benefits of working from home was that you rarely ended up in an office. This prevents a lot of bacterial contact from other people in an office. So I came down with a sinus thing and ended up flat on my ass friday instead of going to work. This turned out to be a 48 hour bug, so it started around 4 pm thursday and stuck with me until around 4 pm saturday.

Saturday at 7 am was supposed to be The Big Deuce 2 mile open water swim race. I did not end up being able to attend. I did go get the packet/t-shirt. And since I was feeling better on sunday I ended up heading to the gym and put my 2 miles in the pool. That's 144 laps in a 25 meter pool if you are counting at home. I timed it out in 1 hour 17 minutes. That would have put me finishing 100th out of 108 people. I'm just glad I covered the distance. It's an ironman prep thing to build my swim capacity to a 2 mile status. So I got my miles in the pool instead of the lake, big whup.

In other news, Bigun got into the school we wanted after all! I'm very excited. It's a year round school, so it started July 9th with a huge waiting list. By last week a spot opened up and she got in! So she's officially in the Wake county school system now, in 5 year old kindergarten. Here's a picture of her first day at school:

Being in a year round school she goes for 9 weeks and gets 3 weeks off instead of a traditional 12 week summer break. That means she'll have most of september, december, march and june off. We're all really looking forward to trying this new schedule out. I prefer to take vacations in the fall/winter/spring, so I think it will be fantastic.

And now I have to tell an Evil Genius True Story. We're working on potty training her, and it's going pretty good I think. Until Sunday. She did put a nice dookey in the potty, and that's great. But she did not wipe or flush. Instead, she came and sat down on my foot. Because daddy makes the best toilet paper? wtf? She just stood up and there was shit on my foot. Then I found some more on the floor of the bathroom. Wow, the hits just keep on coming. That child is special.

I also got a tattoo yesterday! It's my first, and such an odd thing for a 35 year old to do. Couple of pics:

I got the word "Balance" on my chest. The irony is not lost of putting the word balance on one side of my body instead of in the middle, thereby throwing me out of balance. But I can totally understand why tat's are addictive. I knew that I couldn't swim for a few weeks after getting one, and with that 2 mile swim behind me I knew I could take a few weeks out of the pool. I'm pretty sure I will end up getting more in time, including the m-dot on my right leg after finishing ironman florida next year.

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I've been debating tattoos for several months now. What to get, and where, it's just an urge that wouldn't go away. This one is meaningful because I wanted something small enough to where I couldn't abandon when they were halfway through if it hurt too much. It didn't hurt that bad, so I'm planning the next (larger) one.

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Balance is a goal for me. I've preached for years on here about the benefits of balanced training. We also have to watch for work/family balance, family vs personal time, balancing your friends with your commitments, even beer vs..... well ok you really can only drink beer and be ok (as opposed to wine or liquor - Coffee, water, and sports drinks are still staples).

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But the fact remains that everything you do and every choice you make has a balanced offset sometimes called an opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of taking the wife and kids to dinner could be having beers after work with your cube-mates. Finding that balance can be tricky. Taking time to train takes time away from your (and my) kids, and that can be a tough balance. Going out to lunch with a group from the office often enough might mean you won't have the cash for a race entry fee (a cost cost?). So balance has been on the brain a lot for a long time. I'm hoping this ink will be a reminder to keep everything balanced.

Up next is a metric century bike ride august 7th. It's a local charity ride, and I'm using it mostly as a training race to get a time established for the half ironman in september. Should be a hot blast, I'm really looking forward to it!

Triangle Sprint race report

The Triangle Sprint Triathlon was an absolutely amazing race! I had heard that it was a tougher course than what I was used to racing. I knew it was going to be hot. It turned out to be completely incredible.

In transition, getting setup before the start.

We got up at 5:30, out the door by 6. Had no idea where the race site was, but I knew it was only a few miles away from the house. The web site said parking was kind of tight. We ended up parking 2 miles away from the race site, and had to walk in carrying the transition bag and my bike, Roberta. Even at that hour, it was incredibly hot and humid. Kelley and I were both drenched by the time we got to the transition area.

At the first of the year when I laid out my 2010 goals, this one was in there:

12. Take the 6 pack out of the fridge. Hopefully my 14 workouts a week will bring out the abs. Related goal: Run one of my summer sprint triathlons without wearing a shirt. I got these great SUGOi Velocity tri shorts & singlet, but I'm too tall for the singlet to fit right. So I want to run topless without being embarrassed.

Well, the outfit in the picture above was the entire race kit. All I needed. It was incredibly freeing. I LOVED riding the bike without a shirt on. The sun, the breeze, the freedom, it all felt amazing. However, I did not bring the 6 pack out of the fridge. It is still comfortably insulated. I was starting to see more definition before we moved into the new house. So I wasn't the picture of HTFU that I was expecting, but I certainly was not embarrassed out there.

This race was at Harris Lake. The water in Harris Lake is pulled into the nuclear power plant, used to cool off the nuclear reactors, and returned into Harris Lake. The running joke with the kids was that daddy was going to be used as their nightlite last night, and for me to keep an eye out for any three-eyed fish. The water temperature at the swim start was 90 degrees.


Lining up to get in the lake before the swim start

I've been trying to gear up for the 2 mile OWS in a few weeks, and this was the only time I was going to be in a lake before that race. So I wanted to kick some tail in the water. It went so much better than I expected.

That's me with my whole head out of the water and shoulders out of position. Kelley is an incredible photographer to be able to keep up with my position in the washing machine like that.

We had an in-water start about waist deep. I found my stroke and held it. Just like what happens every time in the pool, the lungs tightened up a bit once my breathing got taxed, then loosened up and I was in my groove. The swim was 750 meters, and I held my stroke the entire time! Normally in OWS I have to throw in a couple of breast strokes to get my head above water and catch my breath up every so often. But at this race I just kept on stroking. It felt incredible.

Heading into T1

There was a long run coming out of the water back into the transition area, and I felt so great after the swim it didn't bother me at all. I dried off my feet, put on socks, bike shoes, helmet, and took off with Roberta.


Roberta has been having some saddle problems lately. So guess what happened as soon as I sat down? Shtoink! The seat went immediately loose, back, and pointing straight up. I had just tightened everything down the night before! So there I was riding out of the state park, less than a hundred yards into a 17.5 mile bike ride with a seat playing divide and conquer with my nutsack. I immediately abandoned any time goals on the bike.

Fortunately, at the park exit there was a sag guy. You don't normally see those in sprint tri's. He didn't have an alan wrench to tighten the seat back down, but did at least get it pointed in the right direction. The dangerous part about a carbon fiber seatpost is that you can tighten the saddle down too tight and actually crack the post. If you do that it's just a matter of time before the seat comes off in the middle of a ride. So now I just wanted to finish. I'll deal with replacing the seatpost later if I need to. I knew I couldn't sit on the back half of the saddle for the rest of the ride, and when I go aero I typically move back on the saddle. So this would be your basic nightmare.

Still, the bike leg in it's entirety was really good. The course had lots of rolling hills, two pretty good climbs, and no traffic. It took me about 12 miles to really get my cycling legs warmed up, but once it felt good it felt GREAT! Mechanical difficulties aside, I tackled those hills with precision and power. It felt like I was back at the transition area much faster than I was expecting. I did take a gel as soon as the bike came back into the state park so I'd be fueled up for the run.





T2 felt very fast. Ran with Roberta back to my rack, switched out the bike shoes for the run shoes (with Yanx, no tying), and traded the bike helmet for a headsweats visor and I was off and running.

The run course was a loop with an out and back, all in the state park, and mostly on trails. The trails threw me off mentally, there were tons of roots and loose dirt that I wasn't expecting. The hills on the trails were tough! I wanted a harder course though. and I got it. There were plenty of aid stations with water. It was so hot I walked through them and drank as much as I could take down. Pouring with sweat, it was so freaking humid you could feel the air move around you while running. I kept a good pace, held good form, and ran my race. It ended up being the slowest 5k I've turned in over the last several months, but it still fit. Coming back into the finish line:

Check out the muscle definition in those gams!


I hit the finish line happy to be done. Through all the ups and downs, this has got to be one of my favorite races ever.

Final stats:
Swim: 16:55
T1: 3:24
Bike 59:33
T2: 1:51
Run: 29:28

Overall: 382/481 men
AG: 71/72 35-39 age men

In the swim I was 57th AG, and 69th AG in the bike and run. so it must have been the transition times that pushed me next to last in the age group. I knew I did pretty good in the swim, I passed a bunch of people in the water. And a bunch of people passed me on the bike and run. The strange thing is that in SC I would have been much closer to middle of the pack. Raleigh is so much more competitive! So overall this was a fantastic race and I can't wait to do it again next year. I can see why it's so popular.

This week

This week is nuts. and tons of fun. It all started last thursday.

I love a long holiday weekend. Gives me the time to do whatever needs to be done. Thursday I got to put in a fun brick after work. 15 miles on the bike followed by a hard, fast and fun 6.5 mile run. I feel like I'm starting to plateau my speed and conditioning, especially on the bike and run. So that was a well earned brick workout. and it was FUN.

Friday I rested. it was glorious. We went out to dinner with some friends to kick off the holiday.

By Saturday, I knew it was time to swim. I hit the pool and left 100 laps in there. That's 1.55 miles, and a personal distance record. I hit it in 1:03, which is also a pretty fast time to go that long. No stops, rests, catching my breath between sets..... Just start swimming and keep on freaking swimming. I'm trying to get ready for The Big Deuce 2 mile open water swim on July 24th, and this has me feeling great. I feel like I could have gone longer if I needed to. This is like the 20 mile run before the marathon; it gives you confidence going into the event. and that's fantastic.

Sunday I went outside for a run. I tried Lake Johnson after hearing there was a good trail around the lake. You may remember how much I loved running around the lake at Furman University. It was a 1.1 mile loop around the lake with some shade and some sun. There were water fountains and rest rooms on both sides of the lake. and there was a hill at furman, or a cutoff to keep from having to run it.

Lake Johnson = hill work. I had no idea, and started out on the flat side of the path. Then hit the hills just before coming to the closing of the loop at the parking lot/boathouse. I discovered that it was easier if you ran the route the other way. So the total path was 2.9 miles. There were no bathroom or water fountains along the way, but there were trash cans. and did I mention I got surprised by the hills? It looks like a fun place to take the family, but not the Furman lake replacement trail that I was hoping for. Still, a long run outside on a hot day can only be so bad. I covered 7 miles total.

The funny part was that my mp3 player battery died less than 2 miles in. Then about 5.5 miles in the Garmin battery died off. So I was left with just me and the mile markers. and the heat. yes it was about 98 out there.

Sunday night we had a fantastic cookout with the Pattersons (Chris ran the B2B with me last year), and then watched fireworks from the backyard. The new backyard is very close to the state fairgrounds, so we had the best fireworks show in raleigh from the comfort of our own backyard. Bigun called it "the best appendix day fireworks show ever" and absolutely loved it. In the past she's been scared of the loud sounds and bright explosions. It was so much fun to see her enjoy it.

Monday was reserved for a bike ride with the Raleigh Gyros. It turned out to be about 100 degrees, so I opted out of that and instead went to the gym for a couple of hours. I hit abs and lower back first, then an hour and a half on the bike. My legs were pretty sore after the hill run, so it felt great to spin them out. Again, I'm still feeling plateau'd on the bike so it's crazy. I've got to find a way to push the bounds more. To make matters worse, the gym plays cardio cinema, where they put a different movie every day on a big projection screen. There's no treadmills in the theater, but there is a good bike. so the movie (Surrogates with Bruce Willis) was playing monday, and I watched it.

Today I got in some good yoga before work, and a hard and fast 1000 yds in the pool over lunch. I'm feeling good in the water these days.

Tomorrow's going to be fun. For starter's, it's my 35th birthday! Mentally I'm having kind of a midlife thing. But it's still going to be a good day. A lot of people took this week off from work, so it's an easy week in the office. And I'm hitting up another brick after work tomorrow. Going to be a long one, maybe an hour on the bike and an hour running. maybe even a longer bike ride.

It's also the last workout of the week. Saturday I've got the Triangle Sprint triathlon and I am ready to taper! if you can call 3 days a taper. This promises to be a tough course. I'm ready for it. The 750 m swim is in Lake Harris, which I'm not familiar with. It's a local race though, not far away from the house. The bike is 17.5 miles of rollers, and the run is a 5k in rolling trails. It's going to be hot. I'm going to go fast. I'm not setting official time goals, but I want to cover the bike in under an hour and the run in under 30 minutes.

The real goal for this triathlon was set back in January with my First of the Year Goal post. Specifically, this particularly gay goal was set to run a summer triathlon without a shirt, and look like I belong there. Since this is my only summer triathlon, I'm going topless. and I'll let fate (and the gentle interweb pictures) tell if I deserved to be running with the hardbodies. That means I've been watching the fuel really closely this week, trying to make myself as lean as possible. I hope I can pull it off. Kelley's coming to take pics, so sometime over the weekend I'll post a race report.

Then saturday night we're having some peeps over for beers and fun to celebrate my birthday. should be a blast! have a great week!

Also, happy birthday to Amanda, who turned 30 yesterday. Welcome to the new age group! She's still way faster than me.

June Totals

This might be embarassing:

Swim: 3.85 miles, 5 swims, 1 almost race?
Bike: 130 miles, 6 rides
Run: 16 miles, 4 runs
Strength: 1 hour, 3 workouts
Yoga: 30 minutes, 1 workout

yep. pitiful. Just like my recent posting habits. 16 miles running should be 1 run, not 1 month. 130 miles on the bike is pretty good. and almost 4 miles of swimming isn't that bad. But I've got to run more.

The one race I had planned for june I missed thanks to a thunderstorm. It was just a 1 mile open water swim, and I didn't feel like a lake swim when it was lightning outside. of course the lightning went away before the swim actually started, but I was fast asleep and had no idea.

July's going to be a fun month for racing. I have a sprint tri coming up July 10th, and a 2 mile OWS July 24. Coolio!

Father's Day

We had an awesome weekend down in SC. Went back to Greenville to visit the folks, celebrate father's day, and the SC portion of Bigun's 5th birthday. It started with a party:

Uncle Michael and Aunt Summer got her a princess costume that was adorable! They had cake, it was so much fun! My grandmothers both came over for the dinner, as well as plenty of old family friends. Earlier saturday, we (me, Kelley, Morgan, and Michael) took Bigun and Evil Genius to the movie theater to see Toy Story 3. It was a pretty good flick, and EG's first time at the theater. She LOVED it. The first time we took bigun, the big screen and loud sounds scared her pretty good. But not with EG. She was right at home.

These guys were just hanging out at the dollhouse porch all weekend. Hilarious!


Sunday we all got in the pool:

Fun in the sun!

There has not, however, been very much fun in the sun on the training front. It has been HOT down here! Yowza hot. So I've been inside training as much as I can. Last week I got in a few good workouts, including a nice brick thursday night. I'm falling into a pattern of a long bike ride monday, run tuesday, lunchtime swims, and a thursday night brick. It's certainly much less training than I've been doing this year. But they are all good quality workouts. Last thursday's brick was an hour of tough hills on the bike followed by a 30 minute run. I was watching the Celtics lose game 7, which was tougher than the brick. I wanted to keep running but the gym was closing.

Yesterday we got back into town about 8 pm with a full uhaul - the last of our stuff from SC! We got it all unloaded, returned the truck, and got the kids down about 11 pm. ugh. Also, I seriously wrenched my lower back into some serious pain. ouch! So as bad as I was stuffing my face on Mom's Good Southern Cooking all weekend long, I was unable to jump back into regular workouts today. Tomorrow I'm going to the chiropractor for an adjustment. I think some swimming might help too. Then tomorrow night it's date night! We're going rock climbing, as strange as that might sound. Indoor rock wall with a local group of climbers, then joining the group for dinner later. Fun times as long as I'm not in agonizing pain.

I'm going to have to step back up to the plate to really be in shape for a 6 hour half ironman by september. Did you know today was the summer solstice? Longest day of the year. I do hope you got to enjoy the extra daylight. Here in the south we're going to have light outside until about 9 pm. But that means tomorrow, the days start getting shorter. And that means fall is on the way and we've only got a few months of this dang heat left. It makes me optimistic.

Ya want to talk about Evil Genius? Why do we call her Evil Genius? Today she took a dump on the floor at the local DMV. Then she accidentally stepped in it. I wish I could say that was the worst smelling thing in that office. Future parents beware.