MaxBoo Blog

2010-02-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

Wisdom and the Art of Being Not Dangerous

This is one of the best blog posts I've read in years. The content within is something Plato tried to teach me via Socratic discourse a couple decades ago but I was too caught up in digesting Greek syntax to get his point: that the only wise person is the person who knows he doesn't know anything.

Shout out to J.D. of the very excellent Get Rich Slowly blog for sharing (and paraphrasing) the content. And shame on you, Socrates, for being so damn obtuse.

2009-12-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

2009

Two observations from my year of 2009:

I'm glad I hadn't retired sometime in the past 5 or 10 years, or was planning to retire within the next 5 to 10 years. Retirement nest eggs in the stock market were obliterated within the past year and retirees are suffering. There is stiff competition currently for the coveted Wal-Mart Greeter positions. Hopefully the market will recover by the time I retire in, say, 2040. (God, that seems like a long time from now!). Take a look at an overview of my investments' performance in 2009; the red shaded area represents "unrealized losses":
I spent a lot of time running and cycling this year! The following chart shows my total mileage (running + cycling) per month. This dataset likely is under-represented by at least 10% due to various factors (miles ridden on indoor cycle trainer, lack of GPS coverage, forgetting to turn on my watch, forgetting to WEAR my watch...). Notice my peak in July which included my epic ride around Mt. Rainier (in one day). Also notice how lazy I've been since mid-September after I discovered I have a herniated disc in my neck and can't do much in the way of physical activity. Hopefully 2010 will be a little more balanced!

As 2009 draws to a close, I realize this: I am exhausted, in a fair amount of pain, and am completely broke...

But I'm really, really happy.

2009-12-19T21:45:00.001-08:00

As an illustration of how lame a person I am -- this transcript of my most recent voicemail:

"Hey max!

This is grandma.

How in the hell can I send your christmas present when I don't even know where you are?

I don't know your address;

you don't answer the phone;

please give me a call!

I hope to think you're still on this planet.

And by the way: merry christmas.

This is grandma.

Bye-bye."

I suck.

2009-12-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

17.2 %

From Mint dot com's blog:

The government is telling us that the economic stimulus is working and the recession is over. But you wouldn�t know it from looking at the unemployment numbers. While we may have dodged another great depression, unemployment is at its worst since then, having fallen to 10 percent by the Fed�s own reckoning. And, while we don�t like to be the bearers of bad news, we do stand for transparency in reporting statistics. So we�ve produced an animated infographic explaining who gets to call themselves �officially� unemployed, and why the government leaves out millions of jobless Americans in their often cited and repeated unemployment rate statistic. So while the economy may be recovering, it might be awhile before many Americans feel it in their wallets.

2009-10-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

REST IN PEACE, SAM THE MAN

I encountered a poem today which was quite appropriate for the context -- a funeral service for a true outdoorsman who was a throwback to a simpler time filled with the physical demands of the preindustrial animal. Sort of a poor man's Thoreau, but who knew how to de-bone a deer in the dark.

I myself am none of those things, but the poem still struck me full-force:

Pardon me, but can't you see,
I want to be alone:
with no TV, no radio,
no ringing of the phone.
Nobody asking questions,
no need to know the time.
Just some peace and quiet,
and some space that's only mine.

Out on this rocky precipice,
I'm free to be with me,
and laugh, or cry, or talk out loud
to everything I see.
I'm free to dream, to stand and sing,
or just complain and roam.
So, if you'll please, just pardon me.
I want to be alone.

-D. Hawkins

2009-10-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

My other favorite gal is also getting on board! Here my young friend is removing the pedals from her "new" bike. All by herself!

I gave her a little assistance, but not much. With the pedals removed, she can "scoot" around on the bike and get comfortable with her sense of balance. Then she will put the pedals back on.

No training wheels for this ambitious young lady! She will be joining Mommy and me on some bike rides very, very soon.

2009-10-08T18:11:00.001-07:00

MY FAVORITE GAL AND MY FAVORITE SPORT, TOGETHER

Let the good times "roll".

2009-09-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

HIGH PASS CHALLENGE 2009

I had my final bicycle hurrah of the year at the High Pass Challenge last Sunday. The HPC is a 114-mile ride from Packwood, Washington to the top of the Windy Ridge road on the east side of Mt. St. Helens, overlooking Spirit Lake, and back to Packwood. The amount and nature of climbing in this ride actually felt harder than RAMROD (see prior blog post) and I was pretty beat up after this ride!

The HPC course is designed as a stiff challenge and they only let 600 riders on the course. At the start line, they announced that any riders who finished in under 7 hours would receive a gold medal, under 8 hours would receive a silver medal, and under 9 hours would receive a bronze medal. Anyone not done by the tenth hour would be pulled from the course. Hmm. So much for my plan to "take it easy" during the ride! Now I had a goal.

I finished in 6:53:52, about 90th place out of 600 riders. Barely made the gold medal cut off! The last 20 miles absolutely destroyed me. Here's me gasping for air at the finish line:

My sustained level of effort during this ride was substantially greater than at RAMROD. Check out my heart rate data (average HR for the ride was 161!!! My anaerobic threshold is 143. I guess THAT could explain all the cramping). Click once to enlarge the graph, and a second time to enlarge further:

I also think the scenery at the HPC was more spectacular than at RAMROD, which surprised me. The 30-year old devastation of the area surrounding Mt. St. Helens remains a wonderfully scarred zone of dead trees and opportunistic flora. The altitude and exertion may have contributed to my sense of perceptive surreality.

The Numbers:

Total Distance: 114 mi
Total Time: 6:53:52
Average Speed: 16.2 mph
Total Climb: 7,184 ft
Total Calories Burned: 10,982
Total Calories Consumed: 1,500
Maximum HR: 184 bpm
Average HR: 161 bpm
Number of flat tires: 0
Number of near death experiences: 1
Number of fellow riders who fell into a canyon and had to be airlifted: 1
Number of sandwiches, bagels, cookies, etc. I ate at the rest stops: ZERO!!! (I had to bring all my own food, which will be the source of another blog post soon describing my new "diet")

Thankfully, my goddess Ren�e met me at the finish line with some snacks which I was able to eat and stave off my absolute collapse. Thank you!! Also, the cold bottle of tea felt good on my perineum:

2009-08-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

RAMROD 2009

RAMROD was a success!! About 3 months ago when I sort of accidentally obtained an entry into this year's RAMROD event, I panicked a bit because I had not been cycling in several months and in fact was very focused on an early June marathon. RAMROD was scheduled for July 30th, so I knew I'd have a very small window of time in which to prepare for this epic ultra-marathon of cycling.

What is RAMROD, you ask? RAMROD stands for "Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day". It is described as a "challenging course" featuring ten thousand feet of climbing over 160 miles. The Redmond Cycling Club is the organization who designs and supports this annual event. Much of the ride occurs inside Mt. Rainier National Park and thus requires a fair amount of cooperation with the park service. One way the cooperation is achieved is by turning the ride into a fundraiser. This year, RAMROD raised over $16,000 for the Washington National Park Fund.

I prepared for RAMROD by consulting with my friend and triathlete coach Lesley. I asked her to put together a training plan for me which would leverage my relative aerobic fitness (having just completed several months of marathon training!) but also get my legs ready for a multi-hour, mega-climbing cycling event. She put together a superb plan which I followed almost 100%, and I have to say she did a great job! I felt very well prepared and I credit her coaching a great deal. Thanks Lesley! (If anyone is looking for a tri coach, marathon coach, cycling coach, etc. -- give her a call.)

My friend Robin and I arrived at the start line in Enumclaw about 5AM on the day of the ride. We departed at about 5:45 with two of his IronMan buddies (Tyler and Mike). The four of us managed to stay together throughout the day which is pretty amazing considering we covered 160 miles. It was great to have a good group of guys to ride with not only for the conversation and distraction, but also for the slipstream effect (which I optimized greatly, perhaps to their dismay!). Here's me drafting behind Tyler:

We rode south from Enumclaw on the west side of Rainier and encountered our first water stop 33 miles later in the little town of Eatonville. This map shows the entire circuit:

Our next stop was on the south side of Rainier near the town of Ashford, whence we began our first significant climb of the day (Skate Creek Road). This forest service road was in pretty bad shape and we had to navigate across several scary gravel patches and around many potholes. We were fortunate to make it through this section unscathed! Our next stop was at a gas station in Tatoosh, near Packwood, where were replenished our water and noted we were about halfway done with the day's mileage, though we hadn't done any of the difficult parts yet.

From Tatoosh/Packwood we started the day's longest climb. We stopped about 4 or 5 miles later to top off our water supplies and eat some salty potatoes, then launched into Cayuse Pass about mid-day. The air temperature was close to 100 degrees and Cayuse Pass was the most difficult section by far, with a sustained climb of about 17 miles and about a 6-8 percent grade. In all honesty the grade was not the difficult part; my training rides were far more difficult and I felt very well prepared for the climbing. What I was not prepared for was the excessive heat! I wilted pretty badly about a mile from the top of the pass and had to pull over into the shade and rest for about 5 minutes in order to cool down. I felt the beginning of heat stroke and decided to follow the last words of advice Lesley had given me: "Don't get heat stroke!".

The descent down the north side of Cayuse Pass was a real thrill! We coasted downhill for 10 miles at a speed of about 40 mph. I passed a van which was going the speed limit (35 mph). Very fun.

At the bottom of Cayuse we stopped at the base of Crystal Mountain Road and ate a deli sandwich. The organizing club had set up a water stop with volunteers making made-to-order sandwiches. My simple wheat bread + turkey + ham + swiss cheese + mustard sandwich tasted really, really good at that moment.

The final climb of the day was a short out-and-back up the Crystal Mountain Road. Again, the grade was not as much a factor as the heat was! I struggled up to the ski lodge and enjoyed the descent to the bottom. I found out later that only about half of the 800 riders actually rode this 12-mile section of the course. We are the true RAMRODers.

From this point we had about 40 miles to go, mostly flat or slightly downhill, but into a persistent late-afternoon headwind! Plus, we were very tired. I'd say that the last 20-30 miles of RAMROD was the most difficult part of the day.

At last the finish line appeared as we approached our original departure point at Enumclaw High School. I felt pretty damn good about having finished this RAMROD in 11 hours and 41 minutes.

The numbers, according to my Garmin GPS watch:

Distance: 159.79 miles
Time: 11:41:15
Avg Speed: 13.7 mph
Calories burned: 16,907
Climb: +5,472 ft / -5,258 ft
Avg HR: 151

Here's a graph of 3 datasets: elevation, heart rate, and speed. Click once to open, then click again to enlarge and you might be able to make out the scales

Needless to say, I slept pretty well that night and most of the next day. By Saturday, I was feeling restless so Ren�e and I decided to do RAMROD again! But this time on the back of my motorcycle. This time, we stopped frequently and soaked in the views, snapped some pictures, rested by the side of Skate Creek, and indulged our appetites. Here's Ren�e cooling off in the river:

And here's me enjoying a well-deserved beer at Crystal Mountain:

I sure hope I get into RAMROD in 2010, because I'd like to do this ride again! Kudos to the Redmond Cycling Club for putting on a well-supported and organized event, and thanks to all the volunteers who came out and kept us safe.

2009-06-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

TOUR DE BLAST 2009

In preparation for RAMROD a few weeks from now, I drove down to Mt. St. Helens this past weekend and rode 27 miles up the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, then turned around and coasted to the bottom. What a blast! This was the appropriately named Tour de Blast -- designed as a challenging climb with stunning views of Mt. St. Helens' crater.

Following the advice of my good friend Lesley, I only rode the "intermediate" version of the route which amounted to a 54 mile round trip and a high point of 3800 feet. Here is a picture of my speed, elevation change, and heart rate over those 54 miles:

(click to enlarge, and again to zoom)

Basic data overview:

Miles: 53.94
Time: 3:45:02
Avg Speed: 14.4 mph
Top Speed: 39.3 mph
Calories: 4,541
Climb (ft): +4,106 / -4,110
Avg HR: 161

I felt pretty good during the ride, though a little tired over the last 10 miles or so. I honestly under-prepared for this event because I figured "Hell, it's only 54 miles..." but I probably should have done a better job of fueling. I felt especially good on the climbs -- even the 10 straight miles of a 6% grade!! I felt good enough that the next day I managed a gentle 30-mile spin, however I am taking today OFF. OFF days are important.

2009-06-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

NODM 2009

In December 2002, Larry Little rode the bus from his home in Port Angeles to the neighboring town of Sequim 15 miles to the east, got off the bus, and ran home on the newly connected Olympic Discovery Trail. During the run, he thought "there is no better place for a marathon than along this beautiful trail." He called his friends together that night to share the idea and the rest is history.

The North Olympic Discovery Marathon and Half Marathon are run on a unique point-to-point course that incorporates the Olympic Discovery Trail with stunning views of the Olympic Mountains and a five mile finishing stretch along the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I ran my second marathon a few days ago. It was on a beautiful course and the support at the NODM was incredible. I would recommend this little "boutique" marathon to anyone considering the insanity of running 26.2 miles. Save the date: June 6, 2010.

My sophomore marathon effort was a huge personal disappointment. I basically repeated much of the same agony as my disastrous first marathon in Vancouver last year. I have tons of excuses for my poor performance this time around but I'm not going to bother stating them. I'm just not a runner. Plain and simple. In fact, I might not run again. Ever. Seriously. I mean it this time.

On the good side of things, I did manage some minor improvements over last year:

My nutrition was better! I did not have an energy bonk nor did I experience *extreme* cramping (only *major* cramping)

I literally "ran" the whole way, except for the brisk walking through the various water stops; at no point did I capitulate to my pain and walk through my tears of agony and frustration

I ran a conservative first half (2:03 instead of 1:52 like last year), which delayed the inevitable onset of my late-race meltdown

The NODM is quite small, with about 300 marathoners. It was a strange feeling to be "racing" in an event which felt about the same size as some of the group training runs I've done in the past. I loved not having to jostle for position at the start line and spend an entire mile running sideways to avoid the crowd. Big plus for the boutique!

So, here are some of the embarrassing data points:

I finished 26th in my age group! Sadly, there were only 32 people in my age group.

I finished 140th out of all men! Sadly, there were only 193 men.

I finished 206th overall -- my highest overall finish ever! Sadly, there were only 310 runners.

Perhaps the most comical embarrassment occurred 20 yards from the finish line, when I was passed by a 5-foot tall elderly Asian woman. As she passed me, I read the following script on the back of her shirt: "Go Grandma Lee!". And I heard her grandchildren cheering wildly as she loped down the lane to the finish line. Meanwhile, I tried not to trip over what little remained of my depleted ego.

Sigh.

OK, here's the numbers:

Distance: 26.55 miles (according to my GPS watch)
Time: 4:28:43
Avg Pace: 10:07
Max Heart Rate: 195
Avg Heart Rate: 169 (<-- TOO HIGH!!!)

Check out this chart of my average pace per mile (in the blue columns) and my average heart rate throughout the marathon (click on image to enlarge):

As my muscle soreness fades and my ego rebuilds and the shameful memory of Grandma Lee retreats into simple comedy, I tease myself with the possibility of giving this running thing another shot. But not for awhile.

Next up: RAMROD!!!!

2009-05-26T09:17:00.001-07:00

THE 7 HILLS OF KIRKLAND
aka
THE 14 HILLS OF KIRKLAND

Yesterday my friend Chris and I did a 100-mile bike ride in east King County. It was an organized event in support of a charitable organization called KITH, which provides low-income housing solutions for people in need. The ride itself is called the "7 Hills of Kirkland" and the classic route takes you on an approximately 40-mile course with about 3k feet of vertical. The event also includes a metric century option plus a standard century, the latter of which includes 14 hills and about 7k feet of vertical. Of course we chose this last option.

It was a gorgeous day and the scenery was spectacular; at all moments we were blessed with views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, pastoral farmland, or forested, twisty roads.

The final count, according to my (apparently faulty) GPS:

91.60 miles
6:59:08 total elapsed time
13.1 mph average speed
7,275 calories burned
148 average heart rate

I'm not sure how I lost about 8 miles worth of data; my guess is that I was riding so fast that the satellites couldn't find me quickly enough. Or something.

This is the elevation graph:

This is the satellite image of our route:

This is the map of our route:

And here's me after stuffing my face with strawberry shortcake at the finish in Marina Park:

Considering my longest previous bike ride ever was about 60 miles, and occurred several months ago, I'm fairly happy with how my body held up yesterday. I basically ate and drank non-stop during the ride, which is what you have to do during a 7-hour endurance event!

2009-02-20T08:25:00.001-08:00

MORE ON HEART RATE AND HILLS....

I finally have some quantifiable proof of my improved fitness!

Last October, while training for a fall half marathon, I made note of my heart rate activity during a half-hour hill workout. I blogged about it back then, and pointed out that my heart rate seemed to recover quickly on the downhill portion of each hill interval. That was exciting news.

Earlier this week, I repeated this same workout on the same hill in exactly the same manner. I was pleased with how I felt during the workout, but I'm even more pleased to see my HR data improve a bit. Compare the final triad of numbers with the final triad from a few months ago. Here is this week's data:

Here is last fall's data:

My HR numbers are clearly lower towards the end of the recent workout, which to me indicates improved fitness. I'd like to see this improvement translate into an improved performance in an actual race. We'll see.

2009-01-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS

Last night I stumbled across an excerpted portion of a speech by E.O. Wilson, the famous biologist, while I was reading a recent issue of Science News.

In the speech, Wilson draws a distinction between the "physical environment" (e.g. our atmosphere) and the "living environment" (e.g. the animals), while pointing out that recent attention to conservation and energy issues has focused almost exclusively on the former, while neglecting the latter. I'm not sure I buy this artificial distinction between the two environments, but I can also tell you that I'd never start an argument with E.O. Wilson.

What was most memorable about his speech, however, was the following commentary:

The 21st century, I believe, is going to be noted as the century of the environment. The immediate future can be usefully conceived as a bottleneck, of still-rapid population growth and high per capita investment and consumption. Science and technology, combined with a lack of self-understanding and the Paleolithic obstinacy that led to our ruinous environmental practices, have brought us to where we are today.� You can remember it best by thinking of us as being a Star Wars civilization: We have Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions and God-like technology. That�s the source of all of our problems.

Brilliant! We are a Star Wars civilization, whose infantile emotions combined with old world rules and superman powers makes us truly destructive. Well put, Wilson.

2009-01-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

COMFORTABLY HARD

One of the important components of an overall training strategy for a runner is the "tempo run". The tempo run is basically the opposite of the "long slow run". The tempo run is designed to challenge your metabolic system to become more efficient at using oxygen, by taking you to the threshold of exhaustion but not going over that threshold. There is a minimum amount of sustained time which is required for the tempo workout to be effective -- about 20 minutes.

The standard tempo workout consists of a 15 minute warmup, a 20 minute tempo-pace run (at about an 8 out of 10 on the effort scale), followed by a 15 minute cooldown. The "8 out of 10" is also characterized as "comfortably hard", meaning you are pushing your pace a bit, but not quite going all out. Basically, you need to run as hard as you can reasonably sustain for 20 minutes without being totally wiped out -- maybe about 80% of the effort you would give if you were running a 5k race.

As your fitness improves, you gradually increase the 20 minute tempo period. In a full-on marathon training cycle, ideally you should be hammering out a 10-mile stretch of tempo effort at least twice during a long training run. I'm not quite there.

I've never focused much on tempo training, because I've been so concerned about my endurance per se. I've been way more concerned about being able to stay on my feet for 3 or 4 hours (or more), and never worried too much about my speed. In fact, during the explicit "tempo" workouts I've done, I've chased people who are too fast for me and I've become extremely frustrated. Recently, however, I've had some good tempo experiences and I'm convinced I need to focus more on this aspect of my training!

For my tempo runs, I usually just run around Greenlake (with a warmup and cooldown of course). The inner path of Greenlake is about 2.8 miles. It takes me just a little more than 20 minutes to run this circuit. By running the same distance every time I do a tempo workout, I can guage my improvement. If my overall time is lower than the last (assuming the same level of perceived effort), then I may conclude that my lactate threshold has improved.

Here is a sampling of a few tempo runs I've done in the past few months.

Back in July of 2008, just a few weeks after my disastrous first marathon, I tried to get back in the saddle and train seriously for a fall or winter marathon. It looks like I had a fair amount of residual fitness, because my splits were relatively fast for me (avg = 7:54), but it also looks like I ran out of steam:

After a summer of complacency, however, I slowed down. By the middle of September I couldn't even keep a 3-mile tempo run under 8 minutes per mile (though at least in this instance my splits were pretty even):

A week later I improved a bit, and was especially happy with my even first two splits, but disappointed that I apparently had more in the tank because I went way faster in the third mile; I should be more even:

I basically repeated this same pattern three months later -- just a couple weeks ago. I ran the first 2 miles at about an 8 minute pace, then bumped it down to 7:32. Weird. But I felt good!

And then finally this week I felt like I really did the tempo workout properly. My splits were more even, and more importantly I felt like I really ran the entire circuit at a "comfortably hard" pace. I was breathing hard, but could still mutter short sentences:

For my next few tempo runs, I'm going to set 7:20 as my baseline pace and just try to sustain that. Gradually, I'll turn it into a 25 minute workout, then a 30 minute workout, and beyond.

2008-12-29T09:27:00.001-08:00

BACK TO NORMAL

Ahhh, now *this* is the Seattle that we all know and love:

2008-12-24T09:54:00.000-08:00

SNOWPLOW SIGHTING!

On my walk home yesterday, I saw Seattle DOT's one-and-only snowplow at the corner of Denny and 5th. I always figured I had a better chance of seeing Santa Claus!

Yes, kids, the snowplow *does* exist!

2008-12-23T11:11:00.001-08:00

SNOW

Seattle recently got hit by the most snow we've seen in about a decade. Fun! Our fair city screeches to a halt if even the tiniest bit of snow hits our streets, so you can imagine what havoc 8 to 10 inches brought!

I live on a steep hill so it was entertaining to watch people attempt to drive their cars in the mess. I was most amused by this Toyota Land Rover on Lee Street next to my building; it smashed 3 or 4 other cars on its way down towards Taylor Ave. last Thursday:

It remained in that position for about 2 days before someone managed to park it. Now that same street is blocked by an appliance delivery truck. I'm so glad I don't absolutely rely on my vehicle for getting around.

2008-12-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

ATTACK OF THE GARAGE DOOR

About 3 and a half weeks ago I had a little accident. I decided to stick my fingers inside the moving parts of a powerful operator motor which lifts and lowers the garage door to my apartment building. Basically, the door was stuck shut and no one could get out of the garage. I discovered that I could manually lift the door by grasping the chain on the motor with my finger tips and pulling -- hard. After several minutes of inching the door up, I finally got it all the way up -- at which point the motor decided to kick back in. My middle left finger was still engaged with the chain, and got mangled against the gear teeth. The red arrow in the following picture will help you visualize where I stupidly had placed my fingers:

I was pretty fortunate not to lose my finger or hand or arm, but I came kind of close. I yanked my hand out quickly and discovered the fingernail had been completly torn off and there was a nice gash. This picture was taken several hours later; thankfully the cameraphone was a bit off focus:

I assumed I had a nasty cut which required stitches, so I went to my doctor's office. He took one look at it and called the hand surgery clinic and sent me over there, after administering a tetanus booster. He feared an avulsion fracture, which is plainly obvious in the x-ray:

Ouch! I guess that explains the level of pain I experienced.

After a few well-placed shots of anaesthetic, the excellent hand surgeon performed his magic. He drilled holes in the bones and stuck steel pins in them to hold the floating piece in place while the bone (hopefully) heals over the next several weeks. Then he re-attached the fingernail to sort of hold the position as a "splint", and stitched me up. I now have metal in my body:

I learned a couple very important lessons through this minor ordeal:

NEVER stick your hands in a motor. IF you EVER have to, then at least make sure the power is cut OFF first.
I have a white collar job for a reason; I suck at mechanical things. I'll stick with what I do.

And even though this seems like the smallest of injuries -- I mean, it's only one piece of one finger -- I have had to seriously curtail many of my activities, and I'm starting to get really restless! I haven't been able to bike (I can't work the big chain shifter or the front brake), haven't been able to do any weight training (I discovered pullups and rows really require ALL your fingers), and I haven't been able to run as much as I would like to (the throbbing in my finger really intensifies at high heart rate and cold temps).

So, I'm a couch potato for awhile. We recently got two kittens, so at least I have good entertainment for the time being.

2008-12-10T12:49:00.001-08:00

WFH

This is what happened yesterday when I tried to work from home:

It didn't go so well.

2008-11-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

ANTIBIOTICS

I just started taking an antibiotic called Cephalexin. It was prescribed by my doctor, for reasons I will have to explain later after I regain the use of my left hand so I can type more quickly.

Anyway, the pharmacist's notes with the drugs include the following warning:

"CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you experience vaginal irritation or discharge, mood or mental changes, or joint pain."

Really? I experience 2 out of 3 of those symptoms on a daily basis -- without taking any drugs. I'll let you guess which 2 symptoms.

More later....

2008-11-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

This weekend I tried my first "brick" workout. A "brick" is when you combine two different workouts consecutively, in preparation for the transition you would have to make in a triathlon. The most common brick workout consists of a medium bike ride followed by a short to medium length run, with little or no transition time between the workouts. This format teaches your body to adapt to the metabolic and other physiological requirements (like complicated muscle recruitment!) which arise from that sequence of specific events in a long endurance race. In other words, after spinning your legs in circles on a bicycle for several miles, it is kind of hard to jump off and use different muscles to propel your body forward. The longer and harder the bike ride, the harder the transition!

(A quick etymological note: I believe the term "brick" arose from the shorthand version of how the workout might appear in your training log. That is, a "BR" stands for "Bike + Run", and the prevalence of "BR" on training logs eventually led to "brick". This sort of linguistic portmanteau is not uncommon -- an abbreviated shorthand being un-abbreviated into something it didn't stand for in the first place -- though this particular etiology is somewhat disputed. Others have argued that "brick" refers to how heavy and lethargic your legs feel after this kind of workout.)

Anyway, Robin talked me into going for a bike ride before our typical Saturday morning long run. (Why do all my stories about extreme suffering involve Robin? What a jerk.) So we met at 6AM at Madison Park and rode our bikes briskly in the pre-dawn over the I-90 bridge to Mercer Island, and rode a good chunk of West Mercer Way, then back to Madison (maybe 30 miles in total)-- lots and lots of rolling hills . It was fun, exhilarating, and brilliant! I always love my time in the saddle. We got back just in time to join our running buddies, which meant I got to practice the transition in real-time: stripped my wet cycling gear off, and threw on a pair of dry shorts, shirt, and running shoes, then immediately started running. I wanted to run 13 miles... but didn't quite make it that far.

So what did I learn from this experience?

The Good:

The bike ride served as an excellent "warmup" for my run. Usually I spend the first 3 or 4 miles getting into a running rhythm before I feel good at all. This time, however, I hit the ground running because my legs were full of blood and endorphins. In fact, I felt awesome. For about 3 miles.

The Bad:

I felt too good. I ran my first 3 miles at a much faster pace than I could reasonably sustain for a 13 mile training run. I naturally fell into about an 8 minutes-per-mile pace, which intellectually I knew I would not be able to hold onto for very long. But I felt so good, I didn't want to slow down! Hmmm, this seems to be a pattern in my running. (See blog post about my first marathon). After about the 3 mile mark, I slowed down to a more reasonable pace, then by about mile 5 I slowed WAY down to a crawl and finished my run at around a 10 minute pace. Ouch.

The Ugly:

Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. I burned all my muscle glycogen on the rolling hills of Mercer Way and in the 3-mile bike sprint to my car before my run. Oops. Worse than that, I didn't eat enough to make up for the lost fuel. I did manage to cram down a Luna Bar (you know, the Complete Nutrition Bar for Women? Excellent source of folic acid, and other vitamins. Not sure why I like chick bars so much). But Luna Bars only have about 180 calories. So, after an hour and a half on the bike, then about 30 minutes on my feet, I basically ran out of gas! It was a horrible, horrible feeling. I don't think I technically "bonked" because I saw the writing on the wall and curtailed my run by stopping at the 7.5 mile mark. Just flat out stopped. I need to be smart about event nutrition, or I will never be able to work out for more than 2 hours at a time! Nutrition management is an unavoidable requirement of the endurance athlete. Perhaps the only sine qua non.

2008-11-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

MOTO TRIP 2008

I never got around to blogging about our summer vacation. In the last week of August and the first week of September we rode our motorcycles to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. We stopped at several points along the way there and back, and had a great time.

Some highlights:

We spent the first weekend in Penticton, B.C. because Iron Man Canada happened that weekend and we knew a few people competing. (My first experience watching Iron Man Canada in 2006 was quite memorable, and I wanted Lorinda to observe this race firsthand). We camped near Lake Skaha with our friends Robin, Chris and Chris. Chris and Chris were Iron Man virgins like Lorinda. (Chris L. took several really excellent photos, of which a sampling can be found here).

The race started, of course, in Lake Okanagan; 2300 swimmers preparing for a very, very long day:

After the first wave of swimmers got on their bikes, we headed out in Robin's minivan to watch the cyclists cruise around the hills of the Okanagan Valley wine country. Then we sped back to town in time to catch the first pro cross the finish line at the conclusion of the marathon portion of the triathlon at about 3:30 PM. Brian Rhodes of New Zealand won his first Iron Man:

We stuck around until the bitter end at midnight, watching the final long-suffering souls cross the finish line. The crowd enthusiastically willed each participant across the line. As always, it was an inspirational night filled with tears, loud music, blood, Subaru employees in sumo wrestling suits, free candy, and even an unseasonable monsoon. You had to be there.

I was not so inspired, however, the next morning when we had to break camp in the rain and ride north through the valley. Fortunately we were only going as far as Vernon.

A couple days later we finally made it to Banff, after enduring a brutal stretch of heavy rainfall over Rogers Pass on our way to Revelstoke. We had intended to camp along the headwaters of the Columbia, but I sprung for a Super8 motel room out of a desire to stay dry, or rather -- GET dry.

We wandered into the town of Banff and in spite of the light rainfall and unseasonably low temperatures decided to go canoeing on the Bow River:

The razor-sharp Canadian Rockies loomed gloomy over us on our journey down the river:

After a couple days, the sun finally came out and we got to see a bit more of the surrounding peaks, like this view from the parking lot of the condo we stayed at in Canmore:

We did finally venture to Lake Louise in spite of the sub-40 F degree weather. It's always good to check in on the glacier receding up the flanks of Mt. Victoria:

Banff National Park is full of wildlife and we sampled some. While riding on the back of my bike, Lorinda managed to snap this shot of a big-horned mountain sheep on the side of the road.

We left Banff and rode south through the Kootenay region, stopping briefly in Radium Hot Springs for lunch. ("Radium" hot springs? Sounds scary. We did not examine the decaying isotopes).

Soon we arrived in Cranbrook, B.C. where Lorinda's parents live. We spent a lovely couple of days lounging with them. We even coaxed Lorinda's mom into going for a ride on the back of my bike, with Lorinda at the handlebars.

From Cranbrook, we rode perhaps the most beautiful stretch of motorcycling we've ever done: west along Canada Highway #3 via a dramatic roller-coaster of a ride, then south on #6 and we crossed the border into Washington State at a tiny little border crossing near "Nelway". The Pend Oreille National Forest was exciting, and I had never been in this part of my home state so I was wide-eyed the whole time. We worked our way south to the one-building town of Tiger and turned west again on Highway 20. I finally got to see Kettle Falls. The "Falls" haven't really fallen in about 80 years since the Grand Coulee Dam slowed the downhill trajectory of the Columbia and turned the falls into a virtual lake.

We pulled off the road for a brief rest and to take a peek at some leftover forest fire scarring.

We spent the night with my parents in the hamlet of Okanogan, then flew home on the incomparable North Cascades Highway which included an obligatory bathroom break at the Diablo Dam overlook.

We are currently researching a route for Moto Trip 2009! Any suggestions? We're contemplating: Zion and Bryce National Parks in southern Utah, and/or northern Colorado... Perhaps a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. Maybe an aggressive trip all the way to Tucson, Arizona... Stay tuned.

2008-11-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

VICTORIA 2008

I'm way behind on my blog, so let me see if I can get you up to date on a few items...

About 3 weeks ago we went to Victoria, British Columbia for the half marathon. Victoria's one of our favorite cities so we turned it into a short vacation, by taking the Clipper passenger ferry directly from Seattle and by extending our stay in Victoria to include the Monday after the race -- which happened to be Canadian Thanksgiving.

Neither Lorinda nor I ran our fastest half marathon times, but we both felt really good after the race.

I approached this half marathon with a new strategy: I decided to run it as if it were two events -- a 10 mile warmup, followed by a 5k tempo run. So, I hovered around the 8:20-8:25 minute per mile mark, and at mile 10 I kicked it up a notch and ran something like 7:20's to the end. It sure felt good to FINISH a half marathon strong like that. I've never been able to "pick off" people towards the end of a race, because I always feel like dog crap. Not this time. Ran across the finish line in 1:48 and felt totally fine. Probably could have run harder. But I am focusing on PACE more than anything these days. Slower is fine, as long as I'm even. If I learned ANYTHING from my horrible marathon earlier this year... It is that I need to pace properly. Working on that now.

2008-10-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

HILLS AND HEART RATE

A couple nights ago I started the hill sequence of my current half marathon training program. For my hill workouts, I start with a warmup, then attack a stretch of uphill near Lower Woodland Park. The goal is to do 9 intervals. The uphill part is intended to seriously challenge your heart and lungs, and force your body to adapt and thus (hopefully) learn to recover quickly during races. I did my 9 intervals in sets of 3, as Chuck recommends. The first of each set is done deliberately, with high knees and pumping arms while focusing very much on form. The second is done more quickly, and the third is all-out.

If you look at my heart rate data from this last workout, you can clearly see the 3 sets of 3 uphill / downhill intervals, in the shaded grey area:

I was pleased with how immediately my heart rate recovered after each uphill portion. While I spiked up into the 190's bpm by the time I got to the top of the hill, my heart rate very quickly returned to the 150's within a few seconds of dowhill jogging. That instant recovery is something I've not experienced in the past, so I'm happy to see improvement in this area.

The Seattle Half and Full Marathon courses feature some pretty serious hills towards the end of the race, and I'm looking forward to being better prepared. In the past, I've not had a problem running UP the hills, but I've seriously faded AFTER I got to the top and basically limped home to the finish line. This year, I want to get to the top of Interlaken, and RUN to the finish line all-out.

Republican Street will not kill me this year.