You've gotta have Spring before Summer

The weekend was a bit of a mixed bag, weather-wise, and the training was both great and blah depending on the day. Saturday was glorious - the first shorts and a t-shirt day of the year - and we had an amazing run along the lake path (1 hour, 15 minutes). Absolutely fantastic running weather, with just a little bit of a chill in the air when we took off at 7:00 a.m., and no wind at all. Later on, Cath and I took our boys (a miniature pinscher and an Italian greyhound) to the dog park and loafed while they cavorted with their oh-so-happy-to-be-outside peers. Lovely.

Sunday was another story. The rains came in overnight and our plan to join a group ride in Barrington was unanimously scuttled at 5:00 a.m. Instead, Drew and I hit up the Keiser bikes at the gym for our 2:45 ride. Surprisingly, the time went by relatively quickly, with Drew and I chatting the time away about topics big and small. I am, however, hoping and praying that the weather improves enough this coming weekend that we can actually get outside - week 10 calls for three hours in the saddle this Sunday, and, despite the good company, I'm not sure I can handle it on a stationary bike.

The crap weather is still here today, but all I have on the agenda is a swim, so no worries there. And it's my mom's birthday today - happy b-day, Ma!

My pops

So, my father is a bit of an anamoly, as far as most/many dads go - he was never the "sitting-on-the-couch-drinking-a-beer-and-watching-football" kind of guy. He didn't get together with the boys to play poker on Friday nights. I don't recall him spending the weekend in the garage, puttering underneath the hood of a car. (Not that there's anything wrong with these activities or the people that do them).

No, my dad has always been very active - he was part of that first wave of running popularity in the late '70s and early '80s, and would regularly run at lunch with a regular group of guys in downtown Seattle. He completed three marathons - two in Seattle and one in NYC - each in less than three hours. When his running buddies started coming down with various (and dibilitating) overuse injuries, my dad saw the writing on the wall and switched over to cycling. In the years since, he's completed a variety of long-distance riding events, including RAMROD (which goes around Mt. Rainier National Park), Seattle-to-Portland, and at least a couple of two-day MS rides. He and I were also part of a cycling tour that twice went to follow stages of the Tour de France, and were lucky enough to ride some of the most noted (and difficult) climbs in professional cycling. Dad will be 62 this year, but he gets out most weekends to ride with his friends and hasn't slowed down a lick.

Needless to say, it's been a great and special gift to have a father who enjoys the outdoors and physical activity as much - or perhaps moreso - than I do. It has brought us closer and provided a great number of special memories that we often chat about, even years later. I recognize and appreciate these experiences because they belong just to us, our own shared memories of sweat, hard work and good times.

There's also another benefit of having a tough-guy dad - the killer hand be downs. Yes, my dad - like most men - likes his toys, and his cycling obsession has brought with it a garage-ful of really nice toys. Toys that I couldn't afford on my meager government salary. Luckily for me, dad and I share similar physiques, and I have been the happy recipient of more and one "pass-through" road bike. In fact, my very first "real" bike was a LandShark, an awesome steel-framed bike handmade in Oregon that dad passed down to me when his garage was getting a little too crowded. And I am currently riding a Look road bike that he sent my way just last year.

Well, apparently I am being rewarded for those annual Fathers Day cards once again, because my pops is giving me his 2006 Scott CR1 Team road bike, which I was lucky enough to ride when we went out there last Fall for the Western Washington MS ride. It's a great bike, top-of-the-line from the ground up, and I'm fortunate and grateful to be on the receiving end of it. I'll post a pic when it arrives and I get it set up. It should provide many, many hours of cycling enjoyment.

Anyway, thanks pop - not just for the new ride, but for always being an amazing and dependable teammate.

Galena

Well, we're one short month away from our first race of the season - an extended sprint in Galena, Illinois (northwest of Chicago) - which just also happens to be the first tri I ever...well, tried. This was back in 2003 (yikes, how time flies...). We were ready to do it again in 2004, but the race was cancelled on race morning due to bad weather. We haven't been back since, but it's a great start-of-the-year race - short, with a hilly bike course, and beautiful scenery.

Reading other blogs has got me itchy to start racing, and May 16 can't come fast enough.

This weekend's training was great, although the chilly temps and (relatively) short distances kept us from going out to the suburbs. Saturday we ran along the lakefront for an hour, and Sunday was a two-hour ride along the same (but windier) lake path. We're into week 9, and we gain an hour of training time. I'm swimming at lunch today.

Hope y'uns had a good weekend.

IM nutrition

So, my bold new plan for IM WI 2009 is an (almost) entirely food-free nutrition plan. Or, rather, solid food-free. As the training distances/times increase, I'm going to experiment with an all-liquid fuel plan, which, given the proper mix of carbs and protein, should get me through the race with an adequate number of calories but without having to eat any bars, gels, pbjs, or other cumbersome solid food products.

The genesis for this idea is from the fact that I am notoriously bad at triathlon nutrition. Like, really bad. Like, I-just-don't-eat-during-a-race-bad. Which, of course, leads to bonking, stomach upset, and/or general unpleasantness. For example, during IM WI 2006, I probably ate a grand total of 300 calories during the ride. For some reason, I just wasn't hungry. I had programmed my watch to beep every 15 minutes indicating it was time to take in more calories, and I fell behind almost from the beginning. It wasn't intentional, I was just so into the experience, and the time just slipped by, and...well, I think the calorie deficit may have played a role in my having to walk a good portion of the marathon due to severe muscle cramps. Very Bad.

IM AZ in 2007 was much better - again, I was down on solid food (mostly because I don't like fumbling around on the bike with wrappers, baggies, etc.), so decided to go with the gel-and-gatorade-and-water nutrition plan. Sixteen gels, to be exact, divided into three flasks taken over the course of six hours. Yes, 16 gels. You can imagine how pleasant that was. But it worked, although I ran most of the marathon with a bloated belly (not sure if it was related to the gels or not). I took in enough calories, and generally felt much better all day.

Now, because I can't stomach - literally - the thought of another 16 gel afternoon, I'm going with Infinit (http://www.infinitnutrition.us/). If you don't know about Infinit, you should check out their website - they have pre-formulated blends of liquid nutrition, or you can create your own based on your body's particular needs during exercise. I've read many, many stories of people who have been unable to tolerate most of the popular brands of liquid nutrition, but love Infinit and sing its praises. Personally, I've just used it a few times so far this year, but it seems to sit fine with me, and I'm hoping I'll become one of those who think it's the cat's meow.

In a concentrated form, I should be able to sip on Infinit, chased with water, and take in enough calories to get me through the ride (I'll most likely feed/drink from the course during the run). Although, I'll probably have a few solid treats packed away in my special needs bag, just in case I'm dying for something to gnaw on, I'm hoping this will solve my race nutrition isssues. We'll see. I'm going to experiment with this scheme during our longer rides throughout the summer.

Training-wise, I biked an hour after work yesterday, and Cath and I are running together tonight. Tomorrow's a strength day, and this weekend we're (hopefully) invading the suburbs to run/ride.

Cheers all!

Running and riding in the suburbs

This is a peek at where we do our runs out in the suburbs, about 20 minutes outside of Chicago. Weather-permitting, we'll be out there this weekend. I think we're all dying for a little variety in our training, and getting out of the city for a bit might be just what the doctor ordered.

Ah, Spring...not

Well, the crap weather just doesn't seem to want to move on yet - another weekend, and another snow day, means my weekly long ride was on the trainer. Again. This week, though, I busted out every distraction that I could find - magazine, iPhone, and television (hockey game) - and the time went by pretty quickly. Well, about as quickly as 2.5 hours can go on a stationary bike set up in your living room.

The weird thing about a trainer - and I don't know if I'm alone in this or not - but I'm never really sure if I'm getting a quality session in or just (literally) spinning my wheels. I'm not doing intervals or anything that would usually kick my ass, so it's kinda hard to tell if these are quality "miles" or not. I do try to mix up the shifting - typically settling in on repeats of 5 or 10 minutes per gear, within a three-gear range - and I'm usually fatigued at the end, but mostly bored and sporting a sore ass. I guess that's just another reason why I wish the weather would break and I could get some real miles in on the road. Although I'm told that trainer "miles" are actually tougher than road miles, I still don't think there's any comparison to the real thing, training-wise. Oh, well, that time will come...it always does. Eventually.

So as to not be a total Debbie-downer, I should mention that our run on Saturday - one hour and 15 minutes along the lakefront with Cath and Drew - was beautiful (sadly, scheduling issues prevented us from riding that day), with clear skies and brisk, but not cold, temps. It was wonderful, and the company - as always - was terrific.

Today marks week 8 of The Plan, and get to back off an hour of training (yay!). I feel good today, so am (seriously this time) thinking of swimming at lunch so as to avoid the Tuesday double. We'll see. I'm always the most energentic when the morning coffee hits, but lunchtime is still a bit of a ways away still.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

The week so far and beyond IM

Yikes, work has been a huge mental drain this week, so the workouts have actually been a refreshing respite from all the crazy.

- Monday was a rest day, and, no I didn't mess it up by swimming.

- Tuesday I swam 2100 yards before work (had the gym's outdoor pool all the myself for 90 percent of it, which was pure bliss) and ran for an hour after work at about an 8:30 pace.

- Wednesday I biked inside for 45 minutes and bricked it for 15 minutes on the treadmill.

- Today I'm back in the trainer for an hour, and tomorrow I'm doing my weekly strength session (and maybe a swim).

More exciting than the training, though, is this - we're fixing to hike the Grand Canyon from rim-to-rim-to-rim in mid-October! Almost 50 miles and 21,000 vertical feet of climbing. I haven't hiked/climbed anything since Mt. Rainier in '03, and I'm looking forward to once taking on a physical challenge that also includes amazing vistas and wide open spaces. I've never even been to the Grand Canyon, so I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity, even though it comes roughly a month after IM Wisconsin. (Oh, well, I figure we've got all winter to recover...).

Cath and I will be part of a large group of family and friends, several of whom did IM Arizona with us in '07 (and will be doing IM WI with us this year), and climbed Mt. Whitney last year. They're great people, and we're excited to be part of this latest adventure.

More later.

Hope your week is going well!