Ok.  Now onto some actual workout updates.

On Saturday, I headed out on a long run with Jennie on the bike.  It was a relatively chilly day – low 60’s and windy – compared to weather we had last week.  In fact, I had to break out a long-sleeved shirt Jennie had to break out the hat and gloves for this workout.  I took it pretty easy the entire way and felt like I could have kept going and and going.  I ended up with a little over 10 miles at an 8:20 pace.  The best part was that I negative split the workout.

After the run, I spent the rest of the day on the couch watching opening day of college football.  The Irish beat Purdue in their first season under new head coach Brian Kelly.  Let’s hope that is just one of many victories for Notre Dame this year.

I finished up painting our cornhole boards on Friday, but unfortunately, they weren’t quite ready to break out for gameday.  They should be ready for next weekend though!

Now, onto my latest endeavor; yet another attempt at strength training.  Over the past couple of years, I have tried various different ways of strength training (100 pushups – got bored after 2 weeks, weight lifting circuits from a book), but nothing stuck.  I know that strengthening my core will really help with my future training and races and is something that I have to do no matter how much I dislike doing it. 

So, for my latest attempt at strength training.  I’ve started the P90X workout program.  I know a few other bloggers (Jeff, Carol, Barb, and Matt) who have had success with the program, so I thought I would give it a try. In case you are not familiar with the P90X program, it is a 90 day training program incorporating strength training, yoga, cardio, plyometrics, and stretching.  I was lucky enough to get the P90X DVDs from the library rather than purchasing the series.  I also downloaded an Excel spreadsheet that makes scheduling and tracking my progress a breeze.

Today, the first day, included a Chest & Back workout coupled with the Ab Ripper X.  Unfortunately, I do not have a pull up bar yet, so I missed out on a couple of the workouts.  Nevertheless, I felt great during and after the workout.  I really felt the burn during the workout and didn’t have much lingering soreness afterwards.  I found Tony, the host of programs, horribly annoying and once I get the hang of the workouts, I’m sure that the TV will be on mute with the radio on.  I even figure that once I get into a rhythm, I may not need the DVDs and be able to just do the workouts based on the worksheets.

After the P90X workout, Jennie and I spent the afternoon doing some yard work.  It included moving plants/bushes, digging out a garden, and cleaning out rocks.  By the time we finished up, I didn’t have a lot of time to squeeze in a workout, but I was determined to get a bike ride in.  So, I strapped a couple of lights on my bike and headed out for a quick hour ride as the sun set. 

That’s all for now!  I’m hoping to get a longer ride in tomorrow, but hopefully most of the day will be spent relaxing.

This afternoon, was my hardest workout of the week, a mini duathlon.  A co-worker tipped me off to an alumni 5k after Catholic Central’s, my alma mater, first cross country meet of the season.  This is the first year that they were going to have a 5k for alumni, parents, and friends in hopes of making it an annual event. 

The team races at Riverside Park which is exactly 7 miles (according to the Garmin) from our house.  Unfortunately, there is no good way to get there without biking through some heavily trafficked* areas.  Nevertheless, I headed out on my bike at 4:30 for a 5:30 start time.  As I started to ride, the rain started to fall.  I got pretty wet on the way to the park before the rain let up.

When I got to the park, I ran in a woman I swim with at the pool.  Her son is on the XC team.  I had no idea he went to Catholic Central, let alone ran XC.  Small world.  After chatting with her, I looked for the XC coach.  At that time, he was unsure if they were even going to do the event because the turnout was so low.  In the end, they decided to go forward with the race despite only having 5 participants.

We all toed the line; two marathon runners, myself, and two younger guys fresh out of highschool.  The two young guys took off like a shot followed by one of the marathoners leaving me in 4th place.  I had completely forgotten how different it is running on grass, especially wet, muddy grass, than it is on pavement.  It felt like I was barely moving.

After the first mile, one of the young guys started to drop back and I moved up to 3rd place where I would end up finishing.  I ended up with a 20:42 time and was completely drained.  I can’t say that I am anxious to do more XC runs though.  I’ll stick to the solid surfaces.

After the run, I hopped back on my bike and road the 7 miles back home to complete my bike-run-bike duathlon.

I’m thinking of doing a longish run (10-12 miles) tomorrow or Saturday, but I am going to completely play it by ear on how I feel.

*I have a general disdain for words that require a “k” added when making them past tense.  Just thought I’d share.

Thursday

I had one of my best brick workouts ever.  I had a 1:15 bike followed by 30 minute run on the schedule.  Feeling uninspired, I stuck to just doing laps around Reeds Lake for the bike portion.  5 laps later, I finished with 23 miles at about a 19mph pace.  That is about as fast as I can average around the lake because of “The Hill” on each lap.  In case you couldn’t tell just by looking at my splits, I pointed out each split that included “The Hill”.  It really kills the average speed in the long run, but builds some good leg muscle.

After the bike ride, I quickly transitioned into running shorts and shoes.  As I headed out on the run, I was shocked to realize I had almost no brick feeling.  My legs felt great and weren’t heavy at all. I ended up averaging 7:37 over the nearly 4 mile run. 

Friday

Swam at lunch, ran 7.5 miles in the afternoon followed by 2 miles with Jennie.  Other than that I cleaned the house and did yard work.  Nothing exciting there, so I won’t bore you with the details.

Saturday

Saturday was a lazy Saturday in its truest form.  I did do a long slow bike ride in the morning, but after that, I spent the rest of the day napping, watching the Tour de France, and watching Tigers baseball.  I did manage to pry myself off the couch long enough to go to Target with Jennie though.  They had some of their C9 clothes on sale and Jennie needed some extra running clothes now that running business is turning into a daily bad habit for her.

She did find some actual running clothes, but she couldn’t pass up the shirt above.  In case you can’t read it, it says, “1 Glazed Donut = 6 miles”  and the donut is saying, “I’m sweating sprinkles.”  Too perfect.

Sunday

Again, another lazy day. I wrapped up my recovery week with a 6 mile run and then spent the rest of the day on wood working projects.  I made some more progress on the bar.  Only sanding, painting, and finishing touches to go now I think.  I also made a new shelf/monitor stand for my office. 

Here is one of the shelves with the stemware racks.  The stemware racks took some figuring on what would work best.  This design was actually the third design I tried and I think it will work best.  I haven’t assembled it yet because I want to get everything painted first.  The shelf itself is inspired by a Pottery Barn shelf that Jennie likes.  In fact, I had previously built a set for in the kitchen, so building the shelves was a piece of cake.  To compare, I built two 4 foot shelves.  The materials cost, at most, $30 for both shelves.  The authentic Pottery Barn shelves cost $85 each! I’ll take that savings any day.

Here I am cutting each of the stemware racks.  Jennie said that I looked really focused on what I was doing.  Apparently my please-don’t-let-me-screw-this-up-and-end-up-slicing-off-a-finger look makes me appear focused.

No, I was not drinking while operating power tools.  I was simply using the martini glass to calculate the spacing needed for the stemware racks.  I promise!

The new monitor stand.  I ‘m going to hold off adding trim and painting it until I am sure it is going to work.  If, after a couple weeks of use, I can’t think of any ways to improve it, I’ll finish it up.

And to top that off, I made one project.  This one was inspired by one my dad made last year and was easy to throw together with some scrap wood.  It is basically a lap desk for my laptop.  This way, when my laptop heats up, it keeps my legs (and boys) nice and cool.  It should also improve airflow for the laptop and circulate air better.

I made two of them.  One for me and one for Jennie.  I ran out of trim for Jennie’s though, so I’ll finish hers up next weekend.

Finally, here is one of the best race pictures I have ever had.  And it wasn’t even a race I was in!  This is from a couple weeks ago when I biked over to the Johan Tri-fest to watch a co-worker who was racing.  As I passed by the photographers, I said that I wasn’t a racer, but the woman said that I deserved to have my picture taken too. 

Saturday

I got up early on Saturday and biked downtown to meet my dad.  We headed up to the White Pine Trail and out to Sand Lake.  I had never actually made it all the way to Sand Lake (the end of the paved trail).  Last time, I turned around at the 28 mile mark so that I would end up with a 56 mile ride.  Little did I know that Sand Lake was only about 3 or 4 miles beyond that.

The trail was super busy with lots of people enjoying the great weather and holiday weekend.  At times this slowed us down a bit, but this was supposed to be an easy ride for me any way.  I had 2 hour 45 minutes scheduled as my last long ride before my taper began.  We ended doing 60 miles total in 3:46:44 (whoops!) – not super fast, but easy on the legs.

After the bike ride, Jennie and I had lunch and got some work done around the house.  After that, we took the rest of the day to lay around and relax.  I borrowed “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” from the library per Krista’s recommendation.  So far, it is a great book.  It was originally written in Swedish and translated to English, so there are couple of nuisances to work around (like converting Kronors to dollars), but I still recommend it so far.  It is going to help keep me busy during my taper and (hopefully) keep me from going insane.

Sunday

Sunday started off with a trip to Menards to get supplies for our yard work.  The main purchase was a couple of new fence sections to repair the fence in our backyard.  Whether or not we actually own the fence is still up for debate, but it has become quite evident that our neighbors have no desire to maintain it.  Since it is behind their garage and they never see it, they could care less as to how it looks.  As we have to look at it every time we are in the yard, we decided to just bite the bullet and fix it.

The Neon held up great for transporting the fence sections from the store.
Not as convenient as a pickup truck or a trailer, but I’d like to see a pickup truck get
35 miles to the gallon.

 
The “before” picture.  As you can see, plenty of missing pickets and rotted wood.  The
fence nearly came down just by pulling on it.  The section to the right we had previously
replaced when took down some trees.

  
The “after” picture.  Much better!  It should weather in a year or so
and fit right in with the existing sections.

While I had my tools out, I built a small trellis for our cucumbers to grow up.

Assembling the A-Frame trellis for our cucumbers (ala Lifehacker)

Monday

The storms held off until today.  We woke up to the sound of rain falling and light thunder in the distance.  There is something very relaxing about sleeping in the rain.  As the rain started to let up, we got up and I got ready for my bike ride.  Once the rain stopped and the sun came out, it really got humid.  Other than that, the ride was pleasant enough.  After the ride, I went on a quick run with Jennie before we had lunch.

We had hoped to take the kayaks out right after lunch and got them loaded on the car.  However, as we pulled out of the driveway, we heard thunder in the distance.  A quick check of the radar showed another storm rolling in.  So, it was back to reading and relaxing.

Thankfully, the rain eventually cleared and we headed out for a quick loop around Reeds Lake.  After kayaking, we had a great dinner at the Derby Station in Gaslight Village before heading home for some more relaxing.

What a great weekend.  I hope yours was just as fun filled!

I had my long overdue bike fit this afternoon.  Immediately following a nice swim, I hopped on the bike and headed to Grand Rapids Bike Co.  After getting out of the pool, I learned how difficult it is to put on bike shorts when wet.  Not pleasant.

I got to Grand Rapids Bike Co. a little early, which gave me some time to drool over the merchandise.  The Craig Alexander Orbea bike was very tempting, but I didn’t have an extra $10K just laying around.  Maybe next time.

Bryan spent an hour working with me, and we made some drastic changes.  I went from a 100% “Comfort” configuration to between a “Sport” and “Racing” configuration.  This included raising my seat 2.5” and dropping the handle bars almost 3”.  Previously, my handlebars were 1” above my saddle.  Now, they are almost 3” below the saddle.

This did a couple of things.  By raising the seat, I have an improved pedal stroke, which should optimize output power.  As you can see in the picture on the right, I now have the “ideal” 150 degree angle at the bottom of my stroke.  Also, by lowering the handlebars, I am put in a more forward aero position.

 
You can see the results of the fit.  Before on the left, after on the right.

On top of the fit, I bought new aero bars.  My old aero bars were the Century by Profile Design.  They worked well for me and were the right price when I bought them two years ago.  However, with the more aggressive bike fit, the Century’s limited adjustments would have left me way too stretched out.  So, I upgraded to the Airstryke.  These have two main benefits over the Century.  The first is lots more adjustments, both forward and back, as well as more options for where the pads are.  The second is that the pads are spring loaded and flip up when not in use.  This allows more access to handlebars for changing positions.  However, the downside to the spring loaded pads is that they are a bit noisier because they rattle when going over rough patches of the road.  It was annoying at first, but I am already getting used to it.

I took the bike out for a quick spin tonight to test it out.  It is AWESOME!  I was cruising in gears that I didn’t even know existed.  I stayed in the big ring nearly the entire time without tiring.  I did an hour ride; 4 loops around Reeds Lake.  Not only did I feel like I had more cruising power, but climbs were much easier.  I managed to stay in the saddle on all 4 climbs of the Hall street hill.  In the past, after two loops, I have to stand to make it to the top.  While not totally scientific, here is a comparison of my ride tonight with a similar one from a week ago.

A week ago.  4+ loops around Reeds Lake, 20.99 miles in 1:09:58 for a 18.0 mph pace.

After my ride today.  4 loops around Reeds Lake, 19.39 miles in 59:38 for a 19.5 mph pace.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that it was 90*F today?  I was sweating buckets by the end of the ride.

This guy was off to the side of the path.  When I stopped to take a picture he walked right in front of me,
not bothered at all by my presence.  He had little nubs where his antlers were growing in.

Mom, dad and goslings zipped past me on the Grand River.  Mom and Dad didn’t seem very happy with me snapping a picture and quickly hustled the little guys along.

So, here is what you have been missing out on.  (Please excuse the bouncing from topic to topic.)

I started out with an insane peak week of training with 163 miles of training in 13 hours, 12 minutes that included 7800 yards in the pool, 133 miles on the bike and 26 miles on the run.

Jennie was sick for most of the week, which put a damper on things.  She managed to hold off the cold long enough to host the wedding shower she had been planning for weeks, but by the time shower ended, the sickness got the best of her.  She ended up be confined to the couch for 3 days.  I know 3 days on the couch may sound like a good time, but I don’t think she really enjoyed it.  Thankfully, after some rest, she is back to 100%.

My contribution to the wedding shower was building this cupcake
stand inspired by a larger version I found online.

While Jennie was off showering (wedding showering that is), I had the weekend to myself.  On top of getting in a 60 mile bike ride, I got a ton of work done around the house.  I followed that up by indulging in a delicious meat, potatoes and beer dinner.

Note: That is one of the two steaks I ate.  Vegetarian I am not.

My 60 mile bike ride was interrupted by a high school regatta at Riverside Park.  My curiosity was piqued when I saw a pontoon plane land on the river.  Upon checking it out, I found dozens of schools lining the river.  It was quite the spectacle.  I sort of wish my high school had a crew team – it looked like a lot of fun.

Later in the week, I tackled some nice hills on the bike.  I started off with a decent hilly ride on Monday, and then on Wednesday in an effort to torture challenge myself, I did the same hills plus some more hills.

Also, on the cycling front, I finally scheduled a bike fit at Grand Rapids Bicycle Co.  This has been on my to do list for way too long.  I know it is getting awfully close to my first race of the season and this may not be the best time to make changes, but I really want to get this done.  The impetus to getting my butt in gear happened on a bike ride when a car pulled up to me at a stop light and asked if I had ever had a bike fit done.  When I said “No”, he went on to give me a few pointers on how to improve my position on the bike and recommended a specific bike fitter.  We’ll see how the bike fit goes, but it could turn out to be the best 30 second stop light conversation I have had.

Today, I had a time trial scheduled for the pool. I ended up finishing the 1.2 miles (2150 yards) in roughly 37:30.  However, it was far from an accurate time trial because we were interrupted by a fire drill halfway through.  While the midway rest stop was nice at the time, it really screwed up my rhythm and I couldn’t quite find a groove when I got back in the pool.  The time was nevertheless encouraging.  My only comparison is my swim split at Steelhead last year (39:25), so I should improve upon that.  And maybe if I follow Krista’s swim “secret”, I can shave off even more time!

On top of training, I have been busy with projects around the house.  Now that the weather has been consistently nice, the responsibilities of home ownership have been calling.

I worked on refinishing both the back deck and front porch.  The back deck was more work and involved flipping the deck boards, washing, and staining.

This is what we started with.  Overly weathered boards that we had tried to stain a couple years ago, but the stain never took and was chipping off.

Once I had pried up and flipped the boards, I had some help nailing them all back down

Looking much improved already with the boards flipped, and washed.

 
The final product, stained and ready for a summer of activities.

Stay tuned! I’m going to do my best to keep on top of my posts so that they aren’t always as long.

I had setup text alerts to follow a bunch of my blogger buddies, but for some reason I never got any alerts.  So, I look forward to reading everyone’s race reports as they come in.

My first workout was a lactate interval session in the pool.  Lactate intervals, or threshold intervals, are intervals done at as close to your maximum intensity without blowing up.  Lactate intervals help to improve performance by delaying fatigue and exhaustion in endurance events.  My workout was:

300 yard warm up
8 x 25 drills
7 x 100 yard moderate intensity with 5 second rest
6 x 100 yard lactate intervals with 1 minute rest
8 x 25 yard kick drills
300 yard cool down

I did the 7 moderate 100’s at a 1:40 – 1:45 pace.  I figured that based on the moderate intervals, I would shoot for 1:35 on the lactate intervals.  My first lactate interval came in at 1:29!! Holy cow! I decided to go with it.  I ended up finishing the next five intervals in 1:26, 1:24, 1:25, 1:25, and 1:26.  This way by far my fastest set of intervals ever.  The last two intervals really took all I had in me and they kicked my butt.  It really made me feel good afterward too.

Later in the afternoon, I did a high intensity workout on the bike.  I did a total of 28.3 miles in 1:32:35 (18.3 mph).  I pushed it hard for two of the laps around Reeds lake averaging 20+ mph.  Other than the couple of hard laps I backed off and took it fairly easy. 

Now, it is time to sit and relax.  I’m hoping to watch some Tigers baseball tonight, but it doesn’t start until 10:00 PM (damn, west coast games), so I may not even make it till the first pitch.

A couple of my days involved dogs, so the phrase “dog days of summer” popped into my head.  The nerd in me wondered what the origin of the phrase is, so I Googled it to find, “The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, was somehow responsible for the hot weather.” (Source: Wikipedia)  So next time you are sweating your balls off in the middle of the summer, you can blame Sirius.  Consider that your random factoid of the day.  Anyways, my days this week just involved dogs, they were by no means hot enough to be the dog days of summer.

Monday

I moved my 7 mile run from Sunday to Monday to give my sore hamstring some extra time to rest.  It paid off.  I did 7 miles in roughly 53:00.  My Garmin went a little haywire for the first couple miles and showed me running all over the place.  I also did 2,250 yard swim at the pool.  No dogs involved today.

Tuesday

Tuesday’s schedule called for a 1:20 bike ride with 5×3 min Z5 intervals with 3 min active recovery. I stuck to my route around Reeds Lake because it is fairly easy to avoid traffic and be able to do long intervals without hitting much traffic.  This was my hardest ride of the season and in the end I was dog tired (figurative dog today rather than literal).  The wind coupled with the hard intervals, kicked my butt.  I also did a 20 minute strength workout when I needed a break from sitting at my desk.

Wednesday

I did a swim at noon with the core intervals being 4×200.  I got faster each interval with times of 3:15, 3:12, 3:09, and 3:07.  My swim times are still dropping like crazy.  200’s used to take me at least 3:25 less than 6 months ago.  I am crediting the strength workouts for this.

In the afternoon, I did a 4 mile run.  It had been a busy/stressful afternoon of work, so I was itching to get out.  My first mile was 7:23.  I shouldn’t be going this fast, so I told myself to slow down.  Mile 2 was 7:13.  What the heck.  I tried to slow myself down for mile 3 and went 7:14.  This obviously wasn’t working, so I went with it and finished the run in 29:28 with a 7:33 mile.  I guess as long as I was listening to my body and not hurting, it was okay to run harder than I was supposed to.

To get on topic of the blog title, I had a minor incident with a dog on my run.  I was running down the sidewalk and a man walking his dog was walking towards me.  He shortened the leash on the dog, but as I approached, he seemed to let the leash out again.  The dog seemed friendly; it wasn’t pulling on the leash or anything.  But as I passed him, the dog leapt up at me.  Reflexively, I swung my arm and caught the dog on the side of the head.  In hindsight, it was more of a playful leap than an attack leap, but it still startled me.  The guy then proceeded to yell at me for hitting his dog.  Seriously?  I didn’t hurt the dog and I felt bad for hitting it, but if he had control of his dog, it never would have happened.

Thursday

On Thursday afternoon, our house guest arrived; the in-laws dog, Bagel, is staying with us for a couple days.  She is a good dog although she has a tendency to get gassy when she is nervous or excited and she seemed to be nervous after she was dropped off if you catch my drift.

Immediately upon arriving, Bagel found the bone that she had left here during her last visit before making herself comfortable on her sleeping bag.

After the dog was settled in, I headed out on my long bike ride.  I decided to head out to Rockford on the White Pine Trail.  I had a head wind the entire first half of the ride which made it miserably cold.  I wished I had worn my neoprene shoe covers, but I didn’t think it was going to be that cold.

 
The Rockford Dam in the Rogue River.  There were a ton of people finishing in the river downstream.

After a quick stop in Rockford to stretch and warm up, I headed back home.  Now that the wind was at my back, I was flying.  The second half of the ride was almost 10 minutes faster than the first half.

I also managed to stay in the aero position the entire time I was on the White Pine Trail, over half of the ride.  I had to stay up on the hoods while on the surface streets though because there was too much traffic.

The ride ended up being 35 miles in 1:56:41 for a 17.8 mph average.

Friday

I decided to get up early and get my run out of the way.  This was a bad idea for two reasons.  First, it was only about 14 hours since I finished my long bike ride, so my legs were still tired.  Second, it cooled off a ton during the night and was only 20F when I left so I had to dig out my hat and gloves.

I ended up doing a 4 out and 4 back course and then stopped home to get Bagel for the final 2 miles.  She seemed to happy to go on the run, but she got tired quickly.  It worked out well though because after the run, she curled up in the sunbeam and passed out.

Here she is. Passed out and using my swim towel as a pillow.  The life of a dog is so tough. 

Only 2 weeks until the marathon!

Saturday

Technically a rest day from running.  However, Scott Rigsby (the first double amputee to finish Kona) was going to be doing a group run starting at the nearby library.  I thought this would be a cool experience to meet him and he his amazing story.  I jogged up to the library only to find that his running legs were broken.  He is in the process of testing a new prototype of prosthetics and one of the springs broke.  So, unfortunately, there was no run.  I did get to chat with him for a bit though.

After that, it was off to the in-laws for my mom-in-law’s and grandma-in-law’s birthdays.

Sunday

After a visit with the grandma-in-law, we celebrated birthday with the mom-in-law at the Pancake Factory.

 
Mom and Dad-In-Law and my teenage bro-in-law who is apparently too cool for pictures now – haha

After breakfast, I took a bit of a nap before heading out on a 6 mile run.  There aren’t a lot of great places to run because the roads are very busy with no sidewalks.  I ended up just weaving around the neighborhood streets until I racked up the mileage.

Monday

It is a recovery week so I had the day off from running.  I did do 2200 yards in the pool though.  The workout included 5 x 100 yard intervals, 7 x 75 yard intervals and 6 x 25 yard sprints plus the standard warm up, cool down, and drills.

Tuesday

It was a beautiful day and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a bike ride.  I had a hills workout on the schedule, so I decided to just do laps around Reeds Lake.  Each lap is just over 4 miles and I did 6 laps.  Each lap has 3 pretty good inclines.  My goal for the ride was to stay aero as much as possible.  On the two smaller hills, I managed to stay aero during the climb.  On the larger climb, however, I had to get up the hoods to push it to the top.  I ended up doing 28 miles in just under an hour and half averaging 18.8 mph.  I felt like I could have done a few more laps, but it was getting close to dinner so I decided to head home.

Wednesday

Which brings us to today, St. Patrick’s Day.  I got plenty of exercise in today so I could indulge on a few Guinness tonight.  I started with 2000 yards in the pool at lunch followed by lunch at Yesterdog.  After that, I got back to work.  I had to go into the office to pick up some mail, so I decided to bike in.  Round trip it was just over 12 miles.  After I got home, I had to take care of a bit more work before heading out on my run.  My legs were still a bit in bike mode so it was actually like a mini brick run.  I got my 5 mile run in before the missus got home.

Rather than going out and fighting the crowds, we grilled out for dinner.  I enjoyed a Killian’s with dinner while Jennie got in the Irish spirit by dying her Smirnoff Ice green with some food coloring.

After dinner, Jennie and I took a walk up to Jersey Junction for our first ice cream of the year.  In the spirit of the holiday we both got mint chip ice cream.

And now it is time to get some more work done now that the sun is down.