Running with Mike G

Progress

2010-09-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been a while since I've checked in... with a busy work schedule on top of back-to-school time for the girls, something had to give. And it was the blogging that gave. But for a quick update:

Progress is being made in three areas, but the level of progress varies.

Not-so-great progress: The fundraising for Echelon Gran Fondo. Yes, I set a tough fundraising goal of $2,500. On top of the very generous $1,000 that people raised for the Seattle Rock N Roll marathon back in June. So it isn't too surprising that we sit at $500 today, 8 days out from the ride. But I was hoping to get more out of a very generous in-kind donation from one of my mentors, TV Srinivasan. Alas, executing coaching is considered by many to be a luxury item, and in the current uncertain economic climate, we didn't realize the full fundraising potential of that generosity. Nevertheless, we still raised $500 to fight cancer via the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, which is still a great accomplishment! And you can still donate for another month after the ride, so please do keep those donations coming!
Good progress: Training for the Gran Fondo has gone well. It took some creative scheduling of rides and liberal use of the home exercise bike on weekday mornings before work, but according to TrainingPeaks, my fitness level (the blue line) is solid while my freshness level (the orange line) is peaking:

Great progress: The weight is coming down. After tweaking my diet a bit (higher protein to prevent random hunger, eliminating soda, minimizing processed foods) and religiously tracking my consumption and exercise on TrainingPeaks, I seem to be making steady progress. Over the last 7 weeks, I've managed to drop 7.8 pounds and now sit at 190.4. That means there's a reasonable chance of having to pull less than 190 pounds uphill next weekend. Oh, did I mention that 190 is the lowest I've weight since May 1999? That's progress! :)

Thanks for checking in everyone... hopefully I'll get one more post out before the big event. Until then, onward!

Attention Professionals! Fight Cancer, Get an Executive Coach!

2010-08-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sept 14th update

There are still coaching slots available! To make this a little more lucrative for you, the potential donor, here's what we're offering for the next three donations:

Make a $100 donation at my Echelon Gran Fondo fundraising page.
Then e-mail me at mike.goodner@gmail.com with “Gran Fondo” in the subject line and indicating that your donation is going toward the Executive Coaching giveaway.
You will receive 3 hours of executive coaching!

This latest offer will remain open until we have 3 donors at the $100 level interested in the coaching giveaway. So sign up now to claim your hours!

= o = o = o = o =

As you may know, I’m riding the Echelon Gran Fondo 100-mile ride on September 26^th in support of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and LIVESTRONG. One very generous donation that I’ve received is ten hours of executive coaching to pass along to you – the other donors who support my fundraising efforts for these worthy causes. The donation comes from one of my mentors, TV Srinivasan. I’ve known TV for over 10 years, going back to his days as a business leader at DuPont. Over the last two years, as he has moved into executive coaching, TV has been my mentor. Working with TV, I’ve been able to better balance the priorities of family and work, to more effectively set realistic but aggressive goals for my professional and personal life, and to better manage my stress level. TV’s widely varied business experience, working across cultures and building partnerships gives him an incredible wealth of knowledge from which to draw when coaching. For more on TV, check out his credentials at LinkedIn.

How you can win executive coaching

There are two ways you can win one (or more!) of the ten hours of coaching:

1. Purchase an hour! Five of the ten hours are set aside for outright purchase. All you have to do is:

Make a $100 donation at my Echelon Gran Fondo fundraising page.
Then e-mail me at mike.goodner@gmail.com with “Gran Fondo” in the subject line and indicating that your donation is going toward the Executive Coaching giveaway.

At that point, if you’re one of the first five donors at the $100 level, I’ll put you in touch with TV to arrange for your coaching. And yes, if you donate at the $200 level, you can purchase 2 hours, $300 for 3 hours, etc. Once the five hours are sold out, I will post an update at the page stating so.

2. Enter a raffle! Five of the ten hours are in a raffle pool. To enter the raffle:

Make a $50 donation at my Echelon Gran Fondo fundraising page.
Then e-mail me at mike.goodner@gmail.com with “Gran Fondo” in the subject line and indicating that your donation is going toward the Executive Coaching giveaway.

At that point, you’re in the raffle. The raffle will end Sunday, September 12^th at noon Pacific Daylight Time… with one caveat. We need to have at least 15 entries in the raffle to close out the raffle and select the winners using the list randomizer at Random.org. So forward this to your friends and colleagues to ensure we have enough entries to move forward with the raffle! And yes, you can enter the raffle multiple times to give yourself multiple chances to win.

Once you’ve won an hour of coaching, you and TV can arrange how to utilize your hour: a single one-hour session, two thirty-minute sessions, three twenty-minute sessions or some other arrangement. Just keep in mind that with TV in India, most US clients find it convenient to set up morning or evening appointments with TV, in which he will call you.

Good luck!

I’ve benefitted greatly from TV’s coaching, so I congratulate those of you pursuing these coaching hours. And keep in mind, you don’t have to want executive coaching to make a donation toward the Knight Cancer Institute and LIVESTRONG – just make a donation at my fundraising page and know that you’ve benefiting a pair of great causes!

Changes

2010-08-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Yes, it's been a while since I last posted, but training hasn't taken much of a break since then. I did have a nice break from running the week after the marathon, and had about a week off during the first half of July due to a flu/cold thing (although I did not get the immediate post-marathon cold, which is a first!). The training has gone on, but it has undergone some changes.

1) I've transitioned the training from run-focused to cycling-focused. When I was running, I was doing 2-3 runs a week and supplementing the cardio with cycling - basically a strategy not to injure the hip, knee and feet since they've all had problems in the past. Now, the training is cycling-focused, shooting for 3-5 rides a week with the occasional run thrown in for variety or when traveling and I don't have a bike or an exercise bike available. And yes, sometimes I'm resorting to the exercise bike. If you travel to Arizona or Nebraska, where it's 115 degrees or 100 degrees / 80% humidity, a hotel recumbent bike is far better than killing myself outside. So while I haven't quite got the miles and times in that I've wanted every week, I have consistently been getting in my workouts:

2) I've started doing heart-rate based training. The bonk that I experienced in a couple of my long runs earlier this year, and the meltdown that occurred at mile 17 of Seattle, may have been hydration/nutrition-caused. But just as likely they were days that I was pushing the envelope and just didn't notice that I was stretching myself thin. Since I purchased a Garmin Forerunner 305 with a heart-rate monitor in early July (thanks, Mom, for the birthday money!), I started to notice that during a workout I cannot feel the difference between a 150-bpm effort and a 170-bpm effort. But a 150-bpm effort will build endurance without killing me, where the 170-bpm effort will leave me fatigued and make it harder to work out the next day, and lead to a nice cold if maintained a couple of days in a row.

I noticed the shift in philosophy paying off a few times in the last week. I've been keeping most workouts under 163bpm - my supposed Lactate Threshold. Then, I rode a killer ride up Bald Peak last Saturday:

Yes, the heart-rate monitor was going off all the way up the cat 2 climb... but I was able to maintain my heart rate at a reasonable spot the rest of the ride, including up the cat 5 climb - which isn't that easy when you're riding it in 92 degree weather! And after a day off on Sunday, I was smart enough to spin a recovery workout Monday morning at 130bpm, to get in some miles without really taxing the body. Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if the Garmin is the best piece of equipment I have ever purchased!

3) The third change I've made is another approach towards training - being deliberate. Not only in planning my workouts, but in monitoring what I put in my body. Let's face it, going up Bald Peak as a 195 pound rider is a lot tougher than going up as a 155 pound rider (which is where my target weight is). A great website has made it very easy for me to plan my workouts and monitor my intake: TrainingPeaks.com. This software is used by everyone from Tour de France professional riders to weekend warriors like myself, and so far it seems to be paying off. By tracking intake, I've become very conscious of what I eat - so much so that I actually lost weight on a 6-day trip that involved a couple of dinners out. Between the Garmin and TrainingPeaks, I feel that I'm ready to take my fitness to the next level!

One downside of turning from a runner into a cyclist (or serious triathlete) is the time required for training. That means in addition to being deliberate about my training and nutrition, I need to be very deliberate about my priorities. Sure, I could go out and do a 5-hour ride on Saturday followed by another 5-hour ride on Sunday to get in serious miles, but that wouldn't leave much time for family activities. That means weekend workout planning is a joint activity between Christine and I, to make sure that training time is not taking away (much) from family time. It's a constant challenge, but last I checked, my paycheck comes from being a quality expert, not a cyclist - and in the grand scheme of things, hobbies shouldn't trump family. So far it seems to be working, and hopefully we can keep up a healthy balance through the duration of century training.

Speaking of century training, just a reminder that the Echelon Gran Fondo is only 40 days away! So far, fundraising is going slowly... only $225 out of the $2,500 target has been raised. But I hope to announce something in the next few days that will help out with that. In the meantime, please do donate here to help in the battle against cancer! Whether you donate $5 or $500, it all help out and goes to a couple of great causes.

Until next time, onwards!

LIVESTRONG Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon race report

2010-07-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I hope that you've all had a great Fourth of July weekend and got to spend time with family and friends or whomever you choose to spend your time with. We had an enjoyable four days of vacation after the marathon in Seattle, then another four relaxing days. And today is a work holiday, so one more day off for me before it's back to a more regular schedule.

Some of you were following along via twitter or Facebook, and thanks for the comments and encouragement along the way. This marathon didn't go quite as well as I had planned, but overall it was a successful run and fundraising effort!

The weekend started out with a leisurely solo drive up to Seattle - Christine and the girls were on their last day of music camp, but I had to get to the expo to pick up my number so I rented a car one-way. On the drive up, I had the iPod to keep me company, and listening to Competitor Radio podcasts was a great way to get psyched up for the race! After checking into the hotel and dropping off my car, I walked a few blocks over to the expo... one of the biggest expos that I've ever seen! Brooks running had a large area set up, in addition to the normal swag and vendors. I did manage to keep my wallet under control, though, then headed out to a late lunch, a nap at the hotel and a bite for dinner before Christine and the girls arrived around 7:30pm.

The next morning was an early wake up - 4:15 so I could shower (the only thing that will really wake me up that early!), have some breakfast, and walk the 6 blocks to one of the shuttle stops to be bussed out to the start in Tukwila. Staying downtown was great, but looking at the course map, you can see it was quite a ways from the start - and with no spectator parking at the start, it was better to let Christine and the girls sleep in and just meet them at the finish.

At the start, I wandered around for a bit until I ran into another Team LIVESTRONG runner, Jeff from Florida. He and I hung out until a few minutes after the start... with me being in starting corral 17 and him in 20, it would be a while after the 7am gun when we would actually get underway.

Once my corral hit the start, I got into a pretty easy pace. The day was nice and cloudy, and the temperature only 57F, but I decided that with the up-and-down training over the last month, I was not going to try to blast a sub-4:00 run. I figured if things went well, I could run at a 4:15-4:20 pace over the first half, then pick things up over the second half and maybe break 4:10. Or at least run my first sub-10:00 min/mile pace marathon (a 4:22). Or at least set a PR (sub-4:26). And over the first 3.9 miles, it went according to plan: mile splits of 9:32, 9:33 and 9:55 put in pretty good shape. And despite a three-and-a-half minute pit stop right before mile four, and a solid uphill from mile four to five, I was still in pretty good shape.

When I got onto the flats of Lake Washington, I accelerated a bit (splits of 9:12 to 9:51 over miles 6-12) but kept it in the comfortable range. And there were a lot of distractions on the course - some enjoyable bands and DJs (hearing ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" blasting through the I-90 tunnel around mile 12 was incredible!), a lot of high school cheerleading teams, creative aid stations (at mile 7 you could pick up salt packets like those at fast food restaurants for replenishing electrolytes) and tons and tons of spectators.

After coming through the tunnel, I started to feel a bit of fatigue, but when I hit the half-marathon split at 2:12:32, I figured that I was still in good shape. But after maneuvering over some overpasses to get into downtown, then up and down some hills to get through downtown and onto the Alaskan Way viaduct, I realized that I was starting to feel tired... and still had 11 more miles to go. The first serious walking break that wasn't at an aid station was around mile 16, and my split reflected it: a 10:52 mile. A PR was starting to look like a serious challenge, and 4:30 even a bit sketchy. The legs felt heavy and tired. No cramping like previous marathons, and no blisters, but just very heavy, tired, and sore legs. Then the uphill starting between miles 16 and 17 pretty much put both of those out of reach... miles 17-22 saw almost as much walking as running, with splits ranging from good (10:07 for mile 19) to ugly (15:37 for mile 21).

I got my second wind back on the Alaskan Way viaduct on the way back toward Qwest field - a nice 9:59 mile. But after that, I was in survival mode. The next three miles - another out and back away from downtown - were a melange of running and walking, but at a pretty steady pace around 12:00-13:00. And finally, mercifully, the offramp from the viaduct came up around mile 25.8. The crowds got very dense once again, with a lot of people shouting encouragement. Coming down the hill I was able to get back into stride, round a couple of corners, and finish strong - with Christine and the girls cheering me on from the fencing near the finish! It wasn't pretty at all, but finishing in 4:46:28 felt like quite the accomplishment!

While the time wasn't what I was looking for, it was a great experience. The crowds were amazing - although considering I've run Eugene and Portland, I can't say that they were the tops... that would be a disservice to the great crowds in those races. Running for Team LIVESTRONG was quite an experience as well - meeting a fellow team member at the start, get a lot of cheers just by wearing the team shirt, and even one four year-old who yelled "Go Armstrong!" around mile 16. The fundraising aspect was also great - knowing that by pursuing my hobby I'm helping out cancer survivors and those locked in the battle at the same time. This is something I'm definitely going to make a regular part of my athletic life.

Speaking of which, the next challenge is already out there... and something I'm already training for: the Echelon Gran Fondo on September 26th. The goal is a bit more lofty than the $1,000 we raised for Seattle - a cool $2,500, in about a third of the time. But I'm sure we can pull together and do it, since it's supporting two great causes - the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Knight Cancer Institute here in Portland. So join me in the next event, and let's keep it up in the battle against cancer! Onward!

LIVESTRONG Seattle Marathon training 6 days out - this is a taper?

2010-06-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone-

I hope you all had a great Father's Day! We had an enjoyable time going up to Mt St Helens for a little sight seeing... and even though all we saw is this:

we still had a good time roadtripping in the car and checking out the visitors' center. Definitely a nice relaxing day.

Speaking of relaxing, my taper has been far too much relaxing - but not by choice! After my great long run on Monday, I found out that I overdid it a bit. By Wednesday, I had come down with a cold of the coughing, stuff, very scratchy throat variety. Initially the plan was to take Tuesday and maybe Wednesday off, then put in a block of 5 or 6 straight days of medium to easy intensity, but keep the body working. Instead, I took Tues-Thurs off, put in a very light workout on Friday (30 min on the bike, in which I felt like I was going to pass out the whole time) and took another rest day on Saturday. Fortunately, by today I feel almost normal, and was able to put in 40 min on the bike at a reasonable intensity.

From here on out, the goal is to put in easy to medium effort workouts (of the 30-45 minute variety) at least two out of the next three days, then rest Thursday and Friday. At that point, my body should be primed and ready to go for the marathon in Seattle. Oh, and did I mention that my awesome wife and kids bought me some very cool LIVESTRONG swag: a nice t-shirt (shown), another nice t-shirt (blue with LIVESTRONG and "Just Do It") and a great visor. That means I'll definitely be stylin' when I head up to the marathon as a part of Team LIVESTRONG.

And keep in mind... there's still time to donate! If you want to make a contribution to the cause, please do donate here. It's for a great cause!

Depending on how much time I have at work this week, I'll check in a couple more times before race day. Until then, onward!

LIVESTRONG Seattle Marathon training 10 days out - finding my mojo

2010-06-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the late post, but my great training week last week rolled over into this week and I wanted to update everybody after a couple of not-so-great long run experiences.

The first half of last week showed a continuation of the solid trend of workouts from the week before... even translating into my first 6-days-in-a-row stretch since, well, probably college. :) Sure, the home trainer sessions were on the shorter side (but on the higher intensity side, averaging > 19 mph), but coupled with a couple of runs - one at the beginning of the week and one during a business trip that took me out of town Wed-Sat - it made for a great training week:

Cycling: 20.00 miles in 1:02:16.
Running: 7.45 miles in 1:03:08.

As I said, not a lot of miles, but good intensity, and it left me well rested for my last "long run", a middle distance tune-up for race day. After bonking at 11 miles and 11-15 miles during the last two long runs, respectively, so I approached this last tune up with a little trepidation. I knew it had to be a good run to give me some confidence going into the marathon. The question was whether to run it at a "race pace" or go out a little slower and just try to make it consistent. Well, I managed to do both. After running the first mile in ~9:40, I started taking the pace down. Mile 5 actually was around 8:55, but overall I managed to keep a steady 9:05-9:10 pace most of the way. Until the last 3.5 miles, when I started blasting out 8:55 down to 8:33 miles. The legs were definitely with me! I managed to run the best 13+ mile run I've ever had:

As you can see, Nike+ says it was a 14.53 miler (with a brief 25 second walking break for a stoplight between miles 3 & 4. MapMyRide claimed a 14.64 miler. Either way, it was fast... but since I know my Nike+ isn't perfectly calibrated, I'll follow MayMyRide which puts me at an 8:58 pace for the whole thing. :-D

I looks like I've found my mojo! I did a couple of things differently (plain Whole Foods O's before my run rather than the honey-nut variety, pre-hydration with Nuun rather than coconut water), and the weather was a lot better as well (~55F). But that should put me in good shape for Seattle and the run for Team LIVESTRONG.

I'll try to hit 1-2 more updates before race day, but until then, onward!

LIVESTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 26/27 - closing in

2010-06-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Sorry about skipping a week, but we had an enjoyable three-day weekend for Memorial Day, and blogging was one of the last things on my mind. :) I hope that you had a great Memorial Day as well and are making a good transition into summer... which unfortunately the Oregon weather is NOT doing. But after what seems like 40 days and 40 nights of rain, it looks like we might be turning the corner?

Of course, being Oregonians, the rain hasn't slowed us down much... we managed to have a birthday grill-out in the rain yesterday:

But enough complaining about the weather, and on to training! It was a couple of down and up weeks since I last checked in. The week of 5/23-5/30 was a low mileage week due to some business travel and seminar prep/presentation. I managed to get in three sessions on the home trainer, including a 3:15am ride before an early morning flight. But no running, which was probably not bad for giving the legs a break. And while not great, I did manage to keep the diet under control while I was traveling. The week totaled out at:

Cycling: 29.65 miles in 1:36:08.
Weight: 197.0, down 0.6 pounds.

You'll notice that there was no long run - but in my last post, I talked about getting in a last 20+ miler before the marathon. Well, it worked best with both the weather and with family plans to run on Memorial Day. So after a rest day on Sunday, I attempted a 21 mile long run. I say attempted, because I bonked big time. The first 7 miles felt good... the next mile felt OK but I could tell I was running out of gas, so I took a walking break at a stoplight... the next two miles felt OK, including the start of a steamy run on the woodchip trail around the Nike campus. But after that, things fell apart. Miles 11-15 saw walk breaks of 30-90 seconds every half-mile to a mile, and finally at 15 miles I threw in the towel and decided to briskly walk back home. What the workout boiled down to was 15.12 miles in 2:29:47 (the first 11 miles were at a 9:30-9:45 pace, so you can see how much I gave back over the final 4 miles) and then a 4.77 mile walk in 1:15:20.

Not a great confidence builder for my last long run. So hopefully my 12-15 miler coming up a week from now will be a little more inspiring and I can find the legs that I had when I was running 15-17 miles at a time at a 9:10 pace... but those legs might have made a re-appearance in the last few days. After a couple of rest days, I went out for a sluggish recovery run, but that has triggered five days in a row (including today) of cardio that make me feel that things are getting back on the right track. That means we're potentially closing in on a successful marathon experience.

Totals for week 27:

Running (/ walking): 23.12 miles in 4:12:42.
Cycling: 29.82 miles in 1:33:36.
Weight: 194.8 pounds, down 2.2 (yes, I got the diet back on track with a lot of healthy greens!)

Before I check out for the week, I did once again want to thank everyone that donated to my Team LIVESTRONG participation for Seattle. We hit the $1000 goal with a month to spare, but still have an opportunity to do even more. But if you want a bit of a change, we're also raising money for my century ride in September. So if you want to donate to that, with the more aggressive fundraising goal of $2,500, you can donate here.

Thanks for checking in everyone... I hope you all have a great week of family, training and work. Until next time, onward!

LIVESTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 25 - options

2010-05-25T04:33:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! A little late on this week's blog entry, but better late than never... especially considering the good news! On May 17, 2010, we hit our $1000 fundraising goal for Team LIVESTRONG! Many thanks to all of you who donated, as this is a great cause - and many people will benefit from your generosity!

Last week's training was better than the last few. I got in 3 rides and 1 run, rather than the 2/2 split I've been targeting. Part of the reason is to give the legs a rest so they can put in some solid miles over the next 3 weeks before I start my taper. Another reason is that it's been a bit easier to get in rides with some rainy weather outdoors. In any case, the totals for last week were:

Running: 4.89 miles in 41:03
Cycling: 33.61 miles in 1:51:12
Weight: steady at 197.6

Obviously, I need to continue to manage the weight. I had hoped to be below 190 by race day, but it's looking like 190-192 might be at the edge of achievable assuming I get the eating habits back under control...

I mentioned in my last post that I was considering a variety of things to get back on track after the not-so-great long run. I've settled on a compromise between the one-more-long-run and two-more-long-run approaches. My current objective is to get in a 20-22 miler over Memorial Day weekend, then a 10-14 miler the weekend of June 12th. That should give me base miles and endurance while putting me in good shape for a reasonable taper. We'll see how that goes. :-)

The second option to consider is the one I put before all of you. Now that we've achieved the Team LIVESTRONG fundraising goal, we can keep contributing to it and blow it out of the water. If you want to help with that, donate here. However, I have another event coming up in which we can also raise money for LIVESTRONG and the Lance Armstrong Foundation, as well as a local cancer unit here in Oregon: OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute. That event? My first 100-mile bike ride (known as a Century) at the Echelon Gran Fondo, which will occur in September. So we have 4 months to hit an even bigger fundraising goal there: $2500! If you want to help out with this new challenge, you can donate here. In either case, you'll be supporting great charities that help those battling or recovering from cancer.

For those of you not familiar with centuries and gran fondos, I'll be posting more about those in the future. But until then, onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 24 - reminders

2010-05-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I hope that you all had a great weekend - we had beautiful weather here in Oregon, and we did get a chance to enjoy some of it, despite being pretty busy.

Training (sort of) got back on track this week, but my long run did not go as planned. I'm not sure whether it was due to the fatigue I've been fighting off the last two weeks, or the fact that I put in some work on the trainer the day before my long run, or the heat (58F when I started my run, 68F by the time I finished), a horrible diet the week before, or a combination of all of them, but my long run was atrocious.

It actually started out pretty well. The goal was 20 miles, on an out-and-back, running mostly on the roads, but also two laps at the Nike campus. The first 10 miles went well, although I started feeling the distance a little around mile 9. But right after I turned around, utter fatigue smacked me over the head. It was liking hitting the marathon wall, only 10 miles earlier. I took a nice ~75 second walking break, and when I started running again - at around the 9:35 pace that I had been maintaining for most of the run - everything felt fine. But a mile later, fatigue and legs-feeling-like-concrete hit me again. After a 50 second walking break, I tried running again... and decided that today just wasn't my day.

Part of it was definitely the heat. The first reminder that this run gave me is that I have to respect the distance. Instead of sleeping in and starting my run around 10am, I should have sacrificed a little, hit the road when it was still around 45-50F at 7am, and not only would the run have felt a lot better, but who knows - maybe that would have made the difference between finishing and stopping half way. The second reminder was also heat-related: while the last few training runs have been going well, at paces that would put me in the territory of a sub-4:00 marathon, if the weather is warm on race day, that goal should not be on my map. Fortunately I was smart enough to slow my pace down on this one so I didn't bonk even earlier.

The third reminder is that I need to keep the diet under control. There was a lot of junk and a lack of greens this week, and that had me toting 3 extra pounds around during my run, in addition to zapping my energy levels. So it's back "on the wagon" after indulging in candy and gluten-free donuts yesterday.

In summary, the totals for the week:

Running: 14.68 miles in 2:19:03.
Cycling: 18.95 miles in 1:05:08.
Weight: 197.6, up 3.2 (!) pounds.

One more reminder before I go... we're very close to hitting the Team LIVESTRONG goal of $1000 raise for the Lance Armstrong Foundation at the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon. As of this writing, we're sitting at $945 - so my reminder for you is to donate if you haven't gotten the chance. Thanks in advance!

Until next time, onwards...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 23 - a change in plans

2010-05-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

I hope that you all had a great Mother's Day! We had a good time - I caught up with my mom and grandma on the phone, and we spent time with Christine's family celebrating Mother's Day, and birthdays from May, April and even February.

It was a so-so training week: Christine and I were both beset by a fatigue bug during the middle of the week, which made keeping things on track a serious challenge. But I did manage to get in three workouts:

Cycling: 20.71 miles in 1:10:09.
Running: 3.05 miles in 26:47.
Weight: up a smidge to 194.4.

Even though the run was supposed to be be 4 miles, I had to cut it short because of the fatigue. But I learned something very important. Running with 45 ounces of water with this style Camelbak is great for long runs, even though I run out of water around 15-18 miles:

But I've been considering running with my larger 70 ounce backpack-style Camelbak which I use for cycling:

Well, even 3 miles puts so much of a workout on my core muscles and wears me out that it's pretty clear the extra hydration is not worth it for running. For now, I'll stick to having to refill for those 18+ mile runs.

On a related topic, the long run... my training schedule had me running a long runs on May 8th, May 22nd and June 5th leading up to the race on June 26th. Planned 20, 22 and 24 miles. However, May 8th was opening day of the Beaverton Farmer's Market. I could have pushed my long run to Monday the 10th (obviously May 9th being Mother's Day, that was off-limits!). But on top of that, May 22nd there's a family event planned and May 23rd is Hannah's birthday, so I would have had to push another long run to a Monday morning or pull it in to a Friday. Based on all of that, I changed the lead up schedule to the marathon:

May 15: 20 miles
June 5: 23 miles
June 26: 26.2 miles!

Hopefully this training schedule will work ok. On the good side, I'll be able to battle through the fatigue that showed up last week and prevent further wear-down. However, even though long runs on a three week cycle usually go pretty fast, they tend to feel a little crummy at the start and the finish. We'll have to see how that turns out.

In related marathon news, LIVESTRONG changed my Team LIVESTRONG link. However, more donations have been rolling in and we're now up to $945. Only $55 away from the $1000 goal - thanks everyone! Let's keep it up and push past that target - maybe hit $1,500 by race time?

I hope you all have a great week, and that you mothers get the same respect each day that you got yesterday. :) Until next time, onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 22 - a change of pace

2010-05-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! It was a pretty good week for my Team LiveStrong training, considering it was a non-long run week. I took a couple of rest days at the start of the week to fight off some tightness in my knee from last Saturday's long run, but had a pretty decent three workouts (2 bike, 1 run):

Running: 3.12 miles in 27:32.
Cycling: 20.94 miles in 1:10:06.
Weight: down 2.0 pounds to 194.2.

Also, we've had more generous donations to put the fundraising at $825 vs. our fundraising goal of $1000. Almost there! And if you haven't gotten a chance to donate yet, please visit my Team LiveSTRONG page.

Now for a bit of a change of pace: Christine and I had a quick weekend getaway to celebrate our fourth anniversary, and the experience was amazing. So I thought I might share a bit of it with y'all...

On Saturday, we enjoyed visiting a few wineries here in the Willamette Valley. We stopped at Duck Pond (good wine, and an even greater gift shop!), Sokol Blosser (where a friend is hospitality manager, so you can imagine the hospitality was pretty amazing) and Four Graces. We were especially fond of the sauvignon blanc at Duck Pond, and a number of wines at Sokol Blosser: early muscat, Evolution, and the very tasty white riesling.

But the next stop on our getaway weekend was beyond all expectation. We stayed at the new hotel and spa in Newberg, The Allison. We shared an afternoon couple's hot stone massage, then dined at their Jory restaurant. Christine had a very good NY strip steak, and I had lamb prepared three ways - braised & pulled shoulder, roast loin and a Moroccan-style sausage. We followed that up with a bit of sorbet and creme brulee. The great thing about it is that the main ingredients in the entrees were sourced locally, which is something that Christine and I think is important for getting great, healthy food sustainably. They were also very familiar with dealing with gluten-free dining, and made the experience great.

The next morning after another locally-sourced breakfast at Jory, we hit the road and visited Anne Amie for more enjoyable wine tasting. After that, we did another tasting... olive oils at Red Ridge Farms. While I probably need a bit more "practice" at olive oil tasting to really appreciate it, the range of plants in the nursery, and oils, herbs, and gifts in the main shop made this one place that we'll definitely come back to!

The final stop was a great, all-locally sourced lunch at Farm to Fork. Everything is sourced within 200 miles of Dundee, Oregon, and you can tell from the flavors. Sticking to a gluten-free diet was no problem here, either, as they prepare a chicken salad sandwich for Christine with bibb lettuce being the only "bread". Same for my burger (perhaps 1/3 pound), which was topped with white Tillamook cheddar and a sunny-side up egg.

As you can imagine, it's a tough job getting back to reality today, but I did want to share with you the amazing places we visited. The Allison is definitely not an every-day experience, but stops like Red Ridge and Farm to Fork are very affordable, and just a short drive from the Portland area.

Well, it's off to a busy work day. Thanks all of you for checking in! Until next time, onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 20/21 - consistency?

2010-04-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

Did I really say consistency on my last post? Training week #20 threw that out the window - a business trip coupled with a 15 hour workday and two more 11+ hour workdays left me not only with little time to exercise, but the dreaded "traveler's cold" that I seem to get every time extremely long hours and travel converge. Needless to say, week #20 was not the paragon of consistency: 4.29 miles run over two measly runs, in a grand total of 36:55. On the bright side, I did lose some weight... but found it again this week. :-\

The last week was much better, and honestly, was back on the consistency theme. If you exclude the "lost week" the week before, it actually wasn't too bad. The totals for this week, in 2 runs and 2 rides was:

Running: 20.88 miles in 3:11:37, including a great 17 mile long run at a 9:14 pace!
Cycling: 26.85 miles in 1:30:07
Weight: 196.2, up 0.6 pounds over two weeks

The long run truly did feel great. After some Nike+ related technical difficulties starting out, and some heavy legs for the first 2-3 miles, I got into a groove that had me ticking off miles at a pretty steady 9:05-9:25 pace until around 15.5 miles - at which point I was ready to be done. But it was a great feeling to know that the training is exactly on track, and Nike+ even gave me an extra kudo - since I had to re-install the software, it showed this as my "first run" even though it shows all the previous runs I've done:

Now's it just a matter of staying on track through 3 more long runs (20, 22 and 24 milers planned 2, 4 and 6 weeks from now) and being ready for Seattle a scant 61 days from today!

Speaking of being ready, we're almost to our fundraising goal of $1000 for Team LiveSTRONG. $750 down, $250 to go. So if you haven't gotten a chance yet, go to my fundraising page and donate - $1, $10, $20, $50, $100... whatever you can, because it's for a great cause in the fight against cancer.

Until next time, onward!

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 19 - consistency

2010-04-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

This week turned out to be a decent week of training. At the beginning of the week, my goal was to get in two runs and two rides - and that's precisely what I accomplished, even if the rides were on the short side (33 and 40 min). Training consistently is helping me to get back my speed, which I lost in the training lull after my hip dysplasia diagnosis. My two runs clocked in at an 8:40 and an 8:47 pace, respectively... it's great to get down into the 8:40s again after a long time of wandering around the 9:00-9:20 range for short runs.

Totals for this week were on the low side, but once again, consistency is the key:

Running: 7.12 miles in 1:02:09
Cycling: 22.29 miles in 1:13:08
Weight: 195.6 pounds, up 2.2

Ok, so the consistency hasn't be reflected in what the scale is telling me. And some of that was due to a lack of consistency: my goal of eating one giant salad per day was only accomplished on 4 or 5 days this week. But on the up side, there are some body changes going on, as I've lost a half inch off the waist. And no less than 4 people told me this week that it looks like I've lost weight. :) That's a great feeling.

Speaking of great feelings, a bit thank you to all of you who have donated to my Team LiveSTRONG participation in the Seattle Rock N Roll marathon! We're three-quarters of the way there, as donations have reached $750. Just a few more donors and we should be able to crack that $1,000 goal! So if you haven't donated, drop by my fundraising page and donate - whether it's $1 or $1,000, it's all going to a great cause!

Until next time... onward!

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 18 - crushing it

2010-04-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

A quick hello everyone! If you're like us, you have a busy week with Easter-related activities. I do hope that you all have a great time attending church, spending time with family and the likes. We're gearing up for a pretty full but enjoyable day tomorrow. But in the meantime, I managed to sneak in my long run this morning... and it went amazing!

I started out a bit too fast... blasting through the first couple of miles in a 8:50-9:10ish pace. When I tried to slow down for mile 3 in 9:15, I decided it might be fun to see how long I could sustain the goal pace of 9:09 that would allow me to break 4 hours in the marathon. Well, at the 14 mile mark, I stopped the Nike+/iPod combination at 2:07:06, which for 14.01 miles put me at a hair over a 9:04 pace. Wow!

Now there's a BIG difference between running 9:04 for 14 miles and keeping up sub-9:09 for 26.2, but we'll see how it goes as the training evolves. Hopefully the dietary changes are helping out with that as well, not only dropping a few pounds here and there, but giving me more energy.

In brief, week 18 (out of 30 - only 12 more to go!) turned out to be a pretty good week:

22.35 miles on the trainer in 1:15:06
17.12 miles running in 2:34:49
Weight down a hair to 193.4

That's all for now... time to go shower up and enjoy an afternoon of light errands with my amazing wife! I do hope that you all have a blessed Easter tomorrow.

Until next time, onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 16/17 - plugging away

2010-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

Update: The fundraising goal is $1000, not $100. Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader for catching that!

Hello, everyone! For those of you that enjoyed spring break the last week (as we did), I hope you're getting back into the swing of things. We certainly are around our house, and it will be nice to get back to a regular schedule. Especially in terms of training - the last two weeks have been a bit of a challenge... but I managed to keep things on track, albeit with a couple of light weeks.

Last week was spent along the Oregon Coast, and the week before that was business travel to Wisconsin and Minnesota. That meant training was mostly a ton of hotel exercise bikes with a long run sandwiched in between. And a few walks, since the long run aggravated a sore left arch that had been bugging me the last few runs. However, that long run was great - I managed a 9:15 pace for over 12 miles, making me think that if I continue to drop a few more pounds and get some speedwork in, a sub-4:00 marathon (9:09 pace) might be possible!

The totals for the last two weeks:

34.56 miles cycling (home trainer, hotel recumbent bikes, etc) in 3:16:16
2.60 miles walking in 39:00
12.21 miles running in 1:52:56
Weight steady at 193.8

On the fundraising front, things continue to go well. We're up to $650 raise for Team LiveSTRONG, and I'll be filing my paperwork this week to finalize my entry. Let's see if we can hit the $1000 goal by the end of April so we can blow it away in May and June!

That's it for now - it's going to be a busy week catching up at work, so fitting in some quality cardio will be a fun challenge. Onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 15 - surviving a busy week

2010-03-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

This week didn't go quite according to the training plan, but I'm pretty happy with the results. It was a crazy-busy week at work, preparing for a Wednesday afternoon seminar, then playing catch up on normal work activities the rest of the week. But I did manage to get in three solid workouts:

Sunday = rest day
Monday = 9.18 miles on the trainer in 30:02 with some solid, hard intervals
Tuesday = rest day
Wednesday = 3.13 mile run in 28:02
Thursday = rest day
Friday = extra rest day (fighting off fatigue, I actually listened to my body and shut 'er down for a day)
Saturday = 22.53 miles on the trainer in 1:11:38

That checks in at 3.13 miles running in 28:02 and 31.71 miles riding in 1:41:40. But with a change in diet - eating a lot more veggies (carrots and greens, in particular), I managed to lose a whole 2 pounds down to 193.8. So I'll be satisfied with that. :)

Also, it was a good week for fundraising - thank you to those of you who've donated to my Team LiveSTRONG page in preparation for the Seattle Rock N Roll marathon! We're at $600, which is 60% of the way to the $1000 goal. Now if we can just get the final push over the top, we can focus on blowing away that goal!

Since it has been such a busy week, I'm going to cut this short and spend a little quality time with Christine and the girls. So until next week, onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 13/14 - some questions and a plan

2010-03-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

Despite a couple of very busy weeks (work-wise, family-wise and in general), my training has somehow managed to stay on track. The last two weeks of training went pretty much according to plan:

Sunday 2/21: rest day
Monday 2/22: 13.61 miles on the trainer in 45:06 at a solid steady pace
Tuesday 2/23: 4.01 miles running in 36:56
Wednesday 2/24: rest day
Thursday 2/25: 9.17 miles on the trainer in 30:02 with some hard intervals
Friday 2/26: rest day
Saturday 2/27: 5.50 miles running in 48:12
Sunday 2/28: rest day (although a lot of physical activity, striking the set after the close of the girls' play Jospeh and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat)
Monday 3/1: 7.15 miles on the trainer in 24:01 with some hard intervals
Tuesday 3/2: 3.29 miles running in 28:28
Wednesday 3/3: 18.54 miles on the trainer in 1:00:04 at a steady pace with a few surges
Thursday 3/4: rest day
Friday 3/5: 9.11 miles running in 1:24:21 - yep, the true long runs are back!
Saturday 3/6: rest day, but 90 minutes of walking around the Oregon Zoo with Christine! :)

That brings the two weeks to:

Week 13: 22.78 miles riding in 1:15:08 and 9.51 miles running in 1:25:08
Week 14: 25.69 miles riding in 1:24:05 and 12.4 miles running in 1:52:49

The mileage is slowly getting back up there where I need to be to successfully tackle the marathon. Now the questions are: 1) will I stay healthy? 2) can I crank it up a bit more to shoot for a PR? 3) is it possible to fit in a fifth day per week of working out? 4) will I start dropping some weight?

Those questions are yet to be answered, although so far #4 is a "no": yesterday's weigh in was 195.8, which is down 0.2 pounds over the last two weeks. Which - as we would say at work - is statistically insignificant. But we'll see what happens with a few more dietary adjustments (can you say carrots and green leafy vegetables, everyone?)

As for the plan, I've successfully mapped out the long runs it'll take to get me into marathon shape. The tricky part will be the business trips (generally once/month this year) and figure out how to work out around them. What it looks like is this:

The nice this is that - so far - I'm a little ahead of schedule, as you can tell. We'll see if I can keep that up. The 11 miles on 3/20 is going to be tricky because of travel and spring break, and the 14 miles on Easter weekend is going to be equally tricky - because it's Easter weekend. But I've got my "extra" short weekend there in mid-April to bail me out.

Also on the marathon front, thanks to those of you who have donated to Team LiveSTRONG on my behalf. Thank you! We're 30% of the way to the $1000 fundraising goal (yay!), which we need to hit by the beginning of May. So if you've got some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket from your tax refund, please consider donating it to the battle against cancer.

Now on to another busy week! Onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 12 - a quick update

2010-02-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

Yep, I'm a couple of days late - a little thing called the high school spring musical took over the weekend, leaving little time for running, cycling and blogging. So I chose to drop the blogging part. But last week did go pretty well, despite one unplanned rest day. What it boiled down to was:

Sunday: 17.86 miles on the home trainer in 1:00:06 (including some aggressive 2:00 on / 1:30 off intervals)
Monday: 4.77 miles running in 44:05
Tuesday: planned rest day
Wednesday: life intervened, giving me another rest day :)
Thursday: 15.15 miles on the trainer in 50:02 (including some more reasonable 2:00 on / 2:00 off intervals, but at a higher pace)
Friday: rest day (including a very nice acupuncture session!)
Saturday: 6.26 miles running in 56:02

Totals: 33.01 miles cycling in 1:50:08 and 11.03 miles running in 1:40:07. And the weight showed some progress too, coming in at 196.0 pounds on my Saturday weigh-in. Slowly getting back on track... and for those of you that actually have found my Nike+ account, yes, I know it says I ran 6.16 miles on Saturday. But the fact is - I've suspected for a while it's been a little off, so I compared it against FavoriteRun.com and MapMyRide.com, which gave me 6.22 and 6.26 miles, respectively. So for now, on "long" runs, I'm going to get my final totals from MMR.

And yes, 6.26 miles on Saturday was a long run. I haven't gotten my Seattle RnR marathon training plan all sorted out yet, but I'll be increasing 2-3 miles every 2-3 weeks and should be in the 20-22 mile ballpark 2-3 weeks out from the marathon. At least now I do have the little peaks showing up as long runs - those peaks that had disappeared after my hip dysplasia diagnosis:

Now it's just a matter of getting them up to at least 18 miles, preferably 22. Onward!

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 10-11 - back at it

2010-02-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

Finally some good news to report on the training front... while I didn't get in as many workouts as I hoped to, I'm finally over the flu that hit us and back on a semi-regular exercise routine. The week of Feb 1st was somewhat lost with business travel (and a big project at work that was taking a lot of extra morning and evening time), but from last Saturday to today, things have been fairly consistent:

Sat 2/6 - 8.67 mile ride in 30:01 on the trainer
Sun 2/7 - rest day, but went on a nice 40 minute walk with Christine around the neighborhood
Mon 2/8 - 3.11 mile run in 28:35 (lungs were burning, but it was good to be back running!)
Tues 2/9 - rest day
Wed 2/10 - 13.33 mile ride in 45:04 on the trainer, which included some intervals
Thurs 2/11 - 4.22 mile run in 39:10
Fri 2/12 - rest day (plus acupuncture for the hip plus chiropractor for the back - more of a "get everything fixed" day!)
Sat 2/13 - 2nd rest day (plus a busy day of finishing the set for Hannah's school musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" which opens next Friday).

Those numbers aren't great, especially considering I have a marathon to run in just 19 weeks, but I'll take it for the first solid week back: 22 miles on the bike and 7.33 miles running.

Unfortunately, the lack of burning calories - but the added appetite from being back exercising - took its toll, and I tipped the scale at 197.6 pounds today, up 1.0 over the last week (I held steady last week). So it looks like it's a time for a little more dietary discipline is needed the next few weeks, especially since it'd be nice to be down to around 180 for the marathon.

We did have some sad news last week on the family front - my Grandma's brother-in-law passed after a battle with prostate cancer. Once again, this disease rears its ugly head and reminds you how fickle it can be - prostate cancer is one of the more detectable and more easily treated cancers, but if you don't get it in time, it's just as unforgiving as any other type.

So for those of you that have donated in one way or another to the fight, I thank you - we need to find a cure, and we need to find ways to help people live more comfortably during their battle. But if you haven't donated to the fight, or would like to help out again, I encourage you to donate to my Team LiveSTRONG event.

Hopefully as the Team LiveSTRONG training gets back on track, I'll be checking in on the regular weekly basis. So until next week, I wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day weekend. Onward....

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 7-9 - hoping to get back on track

2010-01-31T08:21:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the absence for a while... we had the flu - possibly the H1N1 variety - run on a rampage through our house. Three weeks ago, my wife was laid up with it for ~ 5 days, and after one day of everyone in the house being healthy, I came down with it. So chalk up another week of missed training (and missed work) to laying in bed battling fever, bodyaches and the likes, and another week of recovering as well as catching up at work. But with any luck, we'll all say healthy... which would be the first time in 2010 that the entire house has been healthy for more than a day or two. Wish us luck.

While I did get a couple of rides in while Christine was sick (33.5 miles in 1:52:38), I basically haven't done any quality training for the last 3.5 weeks. And as a result, the diet has yo-yoed from horrible (diet Sprite, popsicles and chocolate) to fairly decent: yesterday we tried quinoa for a new grain source. But fortunately, other than a 2-sip encounter with a Odwalla Superfood, I have stayed gluten-free for the last 28 days. It doesn't hurt that we've been baking our own bread products (Oregon Bread, tortillas, graham crackers). Basically, the books The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread by Betty Hagman and Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts have been live savers!

Of course, having a wife that has been Gluten-Free for two years also makes meal planning a lot easier. :)

Moral of the story: despite no exercise, I've managed to maintain my weight at 196.6 over the last three weeks, although I probably traded a solid amount of muscle for not-muscle. So I'm looking forward to getting enough endurance back to be able to actually run or put some time in on the trainer or exercise bike. Because last I checked, it's only 21 weeks left til the 2010 Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon. In the meantime, while I get my training back on track over the next couple of weeks, please support me and Team LiveSTRONG by donating to the fight against cancer!

Until next time... onward

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 7 - so far, so good

2010-01-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone-

Just a brief update here... it's been a long week with one of the girls coming down with the stomach flu, passing it along to me, and now Christine looks like she's coming down with a cold. So the cold & flu season that has hit our household early and often is back, although the stomach flu was definitely something new.

Anyhow, before things went downhill, I got in a pretty good start to an exercise week. First, I ran the Oregon Road Runner's Club Y2KX last Sunday. I did the 10k instead of the 20.10k as previously planned due to the tightness in the hip, and managed a respectable 55:06. However, unlike last year, I didn't get an age group podium - a measly 5th this time around. I probably would have done better had I not gone out in a ~8:30 pace the first three miles, then bonked into a 9:30 pace the last three.

After a rest day on Monday (in which I had my second-ever acupuncture session), I rode the home trainer on Tuesday: 21.84 miles in 1:15:06. Then a nice run on Wednesday was cut short by right quad pain (which the doctor said would probably go away with more diligent and regular stretching), but I still got in 4.80 miles in 45:14. Then a rest day... which saw the stomach flu set in. So I was pretty much done for the week. Weekly totals were:

Running: 11.01 miles in 1:40:20.
Riding: 21.84 miles in 1:15:06.

On the bright side, I have no survived my first week of eating gluten-free. And so far, it hasn't been too bad. I made up some Oregon Bread, which is basically a hazelnut / sesame seed / poppy seed bread. (The original recipe also has flax seeds, but I haven't found a gluten-free source yet.) The gluten-free diet seems to be helping make me feel less hunger and less discomfort, but part of that could also be week #2 of the "protein for breakfast" kick (who can complain about eggs & bacon every morning???). Either way, I've had some luck: on my Saturday morning weigh-in, I was 196.6, which is down 4 pounds. Yay!

That's all for this week. Hopefully after another rest day tomorrow, I'll be back on track with some riding on Tuesday and Wednesday. Onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 5/6 - goals & resolutions

2010-01-02T21:49:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that your holiday season has been relaxing and enjoyable as mine. And hopefully, you got in a bit more exercise than I did... while not completely slothful, I got in a grand total of 3 rides on the indoor trainer and one outdoor run in the last two weeks:

Running: 6.46 miles in 58:49
Cycling: 56.27 miles in 3:05:19

Not bad considering all the Christmas and New Years activities, as well as a successful fight against the cold that my wife had the three days before Christmas. However, the increase in food and the (unfortunately sustained) decrease in activity resulted in something very undesirable: my first 200+ pound weigh-in since April.

Overall, it was a pretty good year for my weight... up until the last two months. I entered 2009 at 207.2 pounds (yes, our scale weighs in 0.2 increments. Training for the Eugene Marathon helped considerably, and I was down to 195.2 when the gun went off. Yep, 12 pounds in 4 months. But putting in the extra training - and the extra calories for energy - for the HulaMan half-Ironman saw me steadily bouncing between 193 and 198. Apparently, if I'm going to spend my cardio riding rather than running, I need to adjust the fueling strategy if I'm going to lose weight. But after HulaMan, I actually managed to drop again while moving into marathon training. By the time the Portland Marathon came around, I dropped down to 191.8. My lowest weight since September 1999. < big cheesey grin > But a two-week business trip to Taiwan and Japan followed by fighting off various colds and flus, and I managed to put on about 6 pounds in 6 weeks. And the holidays added the typical 2-3 pounds, pushing me over the 200 barrier: 200.6 pounds as of New Years Eve. So I've got my work cut out for me.

How am I going to accomplish not only weight loss (my goal weight is 159, which is near the top end of my 147-155 range in college) but marathon training while transitioning into spending most of my time on the bike in order to minimize any further hip damage? Well, a few things:

Working with my current naturopath, as well as a new extended family member (wife's cousin's new husband) who is also a naturopath, it's become pretty clear that I need to get the blood sugar under control. My blood work doesn't show anything anywhere near diabetes, but blood sugar not only influences energy levels, but it also influences hunger levels. So I've started eating protein for breakfast (eggs, some bacon) and leaving the cereal for a mid-afternoon snack (I still like getting my Trader Joe's Os for their cholesterol-fighting abilities).
Sometime in the next 1-2 weeks, I'm going to set sail on a grand experiment: going gluten-free for at least a month, to see how it influences weight, energy levels and inflammation. There is precedent in sports for living low-gluten or gluten-free; most of the pro cycling team Garmin-Transitions stuck to a low-gluten diet during the 2008 and 2009 racing seasons to try to minimize inflammation.
Along the same lines, I'm going cold turkey on the red meat. We don't eat a lot of red meat in general, but giving it up will prevent me from feeling miserable and bloated (like I did today, the day after a beautiful filet mignon) as well as avoiding the inflammatory effects of some of the fats found in red meat. I'll probably miss the occasional grilled burger in the summer, but otherwise, I'm ok subsisting on pork and chicken and turkey and fish.
I've also adjusted the supplements that I take to drive down inflammation: I added borage oil to my fish oil supplements. (For info on borage oil, you can always go to my favorite source - Wikipedia - but just Google it, and you'll find out all sorts or information).

Hopefully, those 4 dietary changes will allow me to up the exercise this year. In 2009, I totaled the following:

Running: 627.90 miles in 96:15:21
Cycling: 376.18 miles in 22:39:24
Swimming: 2.34 miles in 1:14:00 (yes, I had precisely one swimming workout in addition to my half-Ironman... not recommended, but it worked)
Grand Total: 124 hours, 3 minutes and 45 seconds of cardio - after throwing in some hiking

This year, I don't have a running mileage goal since I have no idea what the hip will be able to take. But I do have a couple of overall goals:

250 hours of cardio
At least 2000 miles on the bike

With any luck, the dietary changes and the exercise will have me at a healthy racing weight by the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon (170-175 would be nice) and around the goal weight by the time the holidays hit.

Speaking of the Team LiveSTRONG event, I'm not going to talk about cancer this week... even though it's been rearing its ugly head. But as always, I encourage you to join the fight by donating at my page or donating to any worth cause that researches cures or helps patients and families in the fight. Onward!

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 4 - time for Plan B

2009-12-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all having a great lead-up toward Christmas. Around here, we have most of our Christmas shopping done, and most of the presents are already wrapped and under the tree (or sent in the mail).

While it was a good week from the Christmas preparation side, it was by no means a good week training-wise. This was my first zero week in a long time... zero runs, zero rides, not even a good walk (unless you count wandering around the mall for an hour and a half yesterday). Not only was the hip acting up most of the week, but some aches in the right quad (same side as the hip) were flaring up pretty bad. The only positive fitness thing was that I got in a solid 4 days of stretching this week. Stretching for a runner is important, but when dealing with hip dysplasia, keeping a good level of flexibility is not only important to stay pain-free but also to limit the amount of damage that running will do to the hip socket.

There was supposed to be a long run yesterday, and that didn't happen. And honestly, I'm coming to grip with the fact that an ultra-marathon is not going to happen, at least in the next 6 months. It's going to take some time to adjust my training to deal with this biomechanical burden, and I want to make sure I don't injury myself - either for the Seattle Rock N Roll marathon or for the 50+ more years I hope to get with my current hip. So the race schedule now reads:

June: Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon for Team LiveSTRONG
Anything else: bonus

Now what it boils down to is 1) getting the trainer set up and start getting some good fitness minutes on the bike; 2) learning what my body can endure for marathon training, even if it's going back to the one-run-per-week-plus-massive-amounts-of-crosstraining schedule that got me through the 2007 Portland Marathon; and 3) continuing to work on flexibility and core strength to protect my hip as much as possible.

In related news, I ran across a blog from author / athlete / coach Martin Dugard that really resonated with me. Right now, it seems that entry (titled "Lactate Threshold") has disappeared from his blog, but he essentially talked about how he didn't seem to be satisfied unless he has some nearly-impossible, challenging, bizarre fitness/racing goal. And how he let other facets of his life suffer (especially his family) in pursuit of those dreams. So maybe, just maybe, this hip issue is a blessing in disguise, and a good excuse to scale back and focus on the things that are more important....

Speaking of importance, yes, we were touched by two more cancer stories this week. Another extended family member is battling prostate cancer, and it's not clear how far it has progressed. And a colleague of my wife is in terminal stage bone cancer, which comes with a lot of pain. Add this to the relative with Hodgkin's, a high school classmate with pancreatic cancer, and a former student of my wife's with brain cancer, and you just can't help but hate this disease. I'm not only looking forward to contributing to the fight through Team LiveSTRONG, but I'm starting to wonder if there aren't other ways I should figure out how to help. Food for thought for now.

Until next week and always, onward...

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 3 - one more reason

2009-12-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone - another week of running is in the books, and it was a second tough week of training in a row. The week started out fine with a 4.02 mile run in 36:28 on Sunday. Monday was a busy day at work, and with my new hip dysplasia diagnosis, I figured running every other day for a while - until I learn to listen to my body a bit more - wasn't an unreasonable approach. However, Tuesday I started feeling run down. Another rest day, this one unplanned. Then when I woke up Wednesday morning, the dreaded fever - 100+. No running for me.

As it turns out, I basically lost the middle of my week, from both running and work, due to a sinus infection. And for those of you who are "knowledge workers", I highly suggest not attending conference calls and trying to sound intelligent when you're running a fever and taking sinus medicine! Fortunately the infection finally passed, and Saturday afternoon I finally got back on track with a 4 mile run in a leisurely 37:44. Not a great pace, but I'll take it. So now the total for the week ended up being 8.02 miles in 1:14:12.

Ultra training resumes next week, with a planned 21 mile (or 3.5 hour) long run. Yes, that's right - as of right now, I'm still training for the Hagg Lake 50k despite the hip. I'm going to see how the longer runs go, and if they give me problems, I'll drop the goal of an ultra. But I suspect this will be my one-and-only ultra if I do make it, because I don't feel like I really need a hip replacement when I'm 50. And after the Seattle RnR marathon, I'll have to re-evaluate running marathons as a hobby. But even if I drop that from the repertoire, there's always 5ks, 10ks, half marathons and even triathlons out there.

As for Seattle, the support has been good - I've gotten both encouragement from many of you as well as donations from some of you, which I really appreciate! Of course, the most impressive fundraising I saw this week was from the supporters of Fat Cyclist (aka Team Fatty). If you don't know about him, check out is site... and definitely check out the links regarding his most recent fundraising challenge here, here, here and here. And no, I'm not going to be able to give away a bicycle or a trip to France as part of my fundraising... but if you have any good ideas on giveaways (or something to donate other than $$$ which might help encourage others to donate), please let me know!

Now in case some of you are wondering about the title of this blog entry. Yesterday (yes, within the last 24 hours), I've learned that a member of my extended family has just been diagnosed with what is likely Hodgkins' disease. Hodgkins is a cancer of the lymphatic system, and even in advanced stages, it has a good survival rate. Right now, there's still no word on a prognosis - but obviously the fight against cancer is something that touches everyone, and usually in more than one way. In fact, right now my wife and I know three people battling three different types of cancer. That's why support to various cancer research and support programs are so important. So even if you don't donate to my Team LiveSTRONG effort, please consider supporting the fight in some other way!

Until next time.... onward.

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 2 - a week of challenges

2009-12-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

As promised, a big event announcement this week - which you can probably figure out from the title. More on that in a bit - or if you want to cut right to the chase, go down to the last third of this post. But first, the week in review.

Training-wise, it was an off week. It started out well with a second rest day on Sunday (I ran long on Friday and have decided that my body likes two rest days after any 15+ mile run), and then a nice 4-miler on Monday. The calves were a bit tight still from the long run, but I did get in 4.09 miles in 38:14. Then the business trip. A few days in Arizona for group face-to-face meetings (planning for 2010), which should have been conducive to running. But between the late evenings (we had to keep Asia-friendly times since one of our group members was still calling in from Malaysia) and all the other meetings, I was only able to get in one run. A nice peppy 3.11 miles in 26:57.

Unfortunately, I caught one of those "traveler's colds", where you come back with the sniffles and sinus issues, so I took it easy on Friday and Saturday. But all things equal, I wasn't too disappointed with the weekly total of 7.20 miles in 1:05:11, considering the busy-ness of the business trip.

Friday gave the biggest challenge of all, though. For all of my adult life, my right hip socket has felt a little tight, a little stiff. But lately (the past 6-12 months), I've had some soreness in the lower back, glutes and side of the hip. Sure, it could have been poor posture causing lower back pains and IT band issues - but with the chronic hip tightness, I decided to get it checked out at the Orthopedic & Fracture Clinic (if you're in the Portland area, this is the place to go for sports injuries!). What the x-rays showed wasn't too surprising: mild dysplasia of the right hip. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, it means the joint is malformed. Maybe from birth, maybe a developmental defect during the growing years. In either case, the hip bone isn't deep enough, and the end of the leg bone puts extra pressure on it. Right now, I've probably got just mild irritation. But eventually, it can lead to a torn labrum, osteoarthritis, or enough degeneration to warrant a hip replacement.

A = good hip; B = dysplasia

(borrowed from Wikipedia)

So.... now I need to learn more about this to find out what it means for my running "career". The doctor said that as long is it doesn't hurt, I can keep running. And for now, when it does hurt, I can just take time off until it doesn't hurt anymore. But in the longer term, I need to look at the big picture - do I really want to have a hip replacement when I'm 60 or 70? And the funny thing is, there aren't a lot of resources on the internet to educate myself about adult hip dysplasia. There are tons of resources about hip dysplasia in dogs, and WebMD has great resources - if you're an infant. Mayo Clinic also has great resources - if you suffer from dwarfism. So far, the best resources I've found are on HowStuffWorks. Apparently it's not just for mechanical and electronic stuff. :) But if you have some resources on adult hip dysplasia, please let me know - I definitely need to learn all that I can.

Finding out that I have a condition that may significantly worsen by the pounding of running long distances has put my 2010 race schedule into question. Three weeks ago, what I had planned to run/swim/ride was:

January: ORRC Y2K10 20.10k
February: ORRC Hagg Lake 50k
May: Eugene Marathon
August: HulaMan half-Ironman or Portland Century ride
October: Portland Marathon

But two weeks ago, I was accepted to be part of Team LiveSTRONG. Specifically, to run the 2010 Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon to help raise funding for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. For those of you that don't know about the LAF, they provide support, resources and inspiration for those battling cancer as well as survivors. The LAF is a great organization, and I encourage you to donate - whether you "sponsor" me and help me reach and surpass my goal of raising $1000 for the Seattle Marathon, or whether you find another way to contribute.

Now, based upon my medical diagnosis and my participation in Team LiveSTRONG, my race schedule looks more like:

January: ORRC Y2K10 20.10k ??? - maybe run the 10k?
February: ORRC Hagg Lake 50k ????? - really have to think about whether this is a good idea
June: Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon! - even if I have to walk it!
August: HulaMan half-Ironman or Portland Century ride xxxx - not very likely
October: Portland Marathon ??? - we'll see

This leaves me with some thinking to do, exactly how I want to approach training in the future. Maybe become a cyclist like my uncle? Maybe stick with marathoning but keep things flexible and listen carefully to what my body is telling me? Something in between? In any case, I now have a great objective for June with Team LiveSTRONG. And I strongly encourage you to visit my page and donate.

Now it's time to get in a nice easy run and hopefully start out a good (but not overdone) week of training... Onward!

Training & volunteering update - Thanksgiving week 2009

2009-11-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone-

Yes, I know I owe you a race report from HulaMan, and a race report from the Portland Marathon, and a big event announcement. Those will be coming later in the next two weeks. But I did want to let you all know that I'm back on track. I had a great training week this week:

Sunday: 4.4 miles in 39:33.
Monday: 4.73 miles in 42:48. It was great getting in back-to-back runs, which hasn't seem to have happened for a while. Also great that both runs were around a 9 min/mile pace, and I wasn't killing myself running 8:20-8:40.
Tuesday: rest day. Yep, I wanted to run, but for a change I'm trying to be smart about about things like rest and pace.
Wednesday: 3.41 miles in 29:14. Ok, a little faster than I was planning for on a base run, but I need to burn of some Lucky Charms that somehow ended up being consumed with my lunch...
Thursday: rest day.
Friday: 18.33 miles in 2:56:26 (according to Nike+/iPod, but according to my watch 2:57:11).

The long run went great. I was able to go out at a steady pace of 9:54 for the first couple of miles, and it never got any faster than the 9:20s (except for a 9:09 thrown in there on some downhill). And the weather was beautiful: 48-51 degrees, sunny and only a slight breeze that was rarely a headwind.

Tomorrow is going to be a rest day, so that brings the total mileage for this week to 30.87 miles in 4:48:01. Very solid. Now if I can keep that up for 12 more weeks until the Hagg Lake 50k!

The other big news of the week was a great experience at the Oregon Road Runners Club Turkey Trot at the Zoo. This is a great event that I ran back in 2006. This year, Christine decided to run it... so for a bit of variety, and a way to contribute back (both to the ORRC as well as one of our favorite organizations, the Oregon Zoo) the girls and I decided to volunteer. We ended up getting stationed at the entrance to the zoo, which is about 3.7 miles into the 4 mile race. We got to see some very fast runners (the guy who won was probably running close to 5 min miles and "won" this non-competitive race by a minute) and a lot of other people who were out there enjoying the typically soggy Oregon weather (including a cow and an Elvis, along with a number of running turkeys). It was great being able to give back to the running community, and put the event in a whole new perspective. [You fast runners who get frustrated about pedestrians in your way... may I remind you that after you're finished, you're now a pedestrian and should stay out of the way of the runners? ;-) ] It's something I'm looking forward to doing again, and despite some protests at the start of the day, the girls seemed to have a lot of fun too. And yes, Christine ran a great race and we all had a great time.

That's it for now... with any luck, I'll be able to get that big event announcement out in the next week, and then follow up with some race reports. Until then... onward.

Small World (redux)

2009-10-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

Konnichi wa from Tokyo! Just a brief update... yes, I haven't posted since Portland. It went well. I finished in 4:30:53, which is less than 5 minutes off my PR. Considering the last few miles were a very painful mix of running and walking at around a 12:00/mile pace due to a nasty blister on my left big toe, I'm pretty happy with it. If I hadn't blistered.... maybe there's a sub-4:15 in this body? Hmm.

Anyhow, I just finished my Nike+ Human Race this morning. For those of you that don't know about it, the Human Race is held in ~25 cities, but you can also run it on your Nike+. There were two host sites in Tokyo, but neither of them would have allowed me to make it to the airport on time for my return flight home. So I put on the shoes and iPod, and headed out the door to run around the Imperial Palace. It was actually a PR run - 52:31 for 10k! But more interesting, I ran into a guy wearing the "Bob Dolphin's 80th birthday" shirt. Turns out he's a running celebrity in his own right: Barefoot Jon! We had a nice chat around 1.5 miles, then I saw him again around 5.5 miles. It's always great to see a running celebrity on your run, especially when you've run with a personal friend with his (I ran next to Bob at Portland from mile 18-20 on his birthday and his 452nd marathon).

That's it for now - time to pack and head to the airport. And maybe get in another run when I land. How many times can you run two times in a day when it's not really the same day. :)

Ready or not...

2009-09-19T12:13:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone-

I've been MIA from this blog for a while, so here's a brief update. Yes, I successfully completed HulaMan. 6:39 and change, which I'm pretty happy with. I'll have a full race report... at some point. But it was not without cost. I managed to give myself a pretty nasty case of posterior tibial tendonitis - which if you're not an MD means that my right foot hurt like crazy and I could barely walk on it for a couple of days, and had to lay off training for a week.

After taking a week off, I thought I was back on track - got in a couple of solid runs while visiting family in Colorado on 8/22 and 8/23, but then a week of business in Wisconsin intervened and despite having my gear, I got in zero training. Then as I started to get back into things the following week, something flu-like hit me. Then as I started to get back into things, another business trip. Well, this week finally went OK - solid runs Sunday, Monday and Thursday, then a good 17.5 miler today.

In case you're keeping track, that's one single long run and otherwise horrid training in the 5 weeks since HulaMan, and the PDX marathon is right around the corner in 15 days. But I'm going to give it the old college try, making sure I do some variety of run-walk-run (walk through aid stations at least, maybe more depending on how things are going) and see if the good base I put in this spring and summer will carry me through. So we'll see whether I'm ready or not for PDX!

Ups & Downs

2009-08-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone - Yep, it's been a long time since my last post. A lot of stuff going on as usual... not sure that I'm cut out for being a blogger, but I'm going to stick with it a while longer and see how it goes. Hopefully by the time the Portland Marathon comes around in October, I'll have figured this out. :)

So the last 4 weeks since I posted have had some ups and downs. One of the ups: our family vacation to San Diego. We had an enjoyable drive down, seeing the Redwoods (see the last post) and spending some time in San Francisco (Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square). And once we got down there, the girls were excited as they had their own room with bunk beds:

Our first full day we spent at Sea World, visiting Shamu and his friends. It was baking hot, so even though we had a good time, we were happy to get out of the sun to some of the indoor attractions. But before the heat got to us, we were able to see the Shamu show. I'm assuming having your trainer stand on your nose is done primarily with the orca in mind. ;)

The next day, we made it to a place I've always wanted to go to: the Wild Animal Park. Basically, it's a wildlife preserve that is part of the San Diego Zoo organization, out in the near-desert conditions near Escondido, California. The amount of land they have gives the animals plenty of room to roam, and they are in much more natural conditions than the typical zoo. There was an amazing collection of wildlife: okapi (they look sort of like zebras, but are actually close relatives of giraffes), lions, giraffes, rhinos, a variety of antelope and gazelles and gorillas.

The third day, we went to the world-famous San Diego Zoo. Of course, we saw the pandas:

Despite the heat that continued to dominate our stay in San Diego, we managed to spent almost the whole day, visiting over half the zoo, and seeing the gorillas several times. Unfortunately, none of the gorilla pictures turned out well, but we did get a picture of these two primates:

The last full day we spent in San Diego was at the beach on Coronado, as well as wandering around the beautiful Hotel del Coronado.

During our four days there, we had a great time. We also found a lot of good eats while in the area: great pizza at Sammy's Wood-Fired Pizza (I had an amazing goat cheese, spinach, mushroom and onion pie), good gluten-free grub at Barolo's Ristorante (I had the gluten-containing but surprisingly tasty pear & Parmesan ravioli with a sauce of marscapone, pear, walnut and sun-dried tomato), our first experience with Pei Wei Asian Diner (which is now a favorite of both Christine and I), and even some yummy gluten-free pizza at Steve's Pizza in Woodland on the drive back.

The first "Down" came after we got back. While I managed to get in 4 solid runs on the 9 days we were on the road (including a couple of tough hill climbs in San Diego), my training took a nose dive as soon as we got back... we got back Sunday night around 7pm, and by the next morning, I was running a fever with the flu. For the duration of the week, I battled a fever that came and went, along with the wonderful body aches. Swine flu? I'm not sure, but it was definitely something tenacious.

By Friday afternoon I was starting to feel semi-human, so I decided to go for a ride on Saturday. Bad idea. A half-hour into my ride, I had conquered one of the hills that I hadn't been able to get up before (Helvetia Road between Meier and Jackson Quarry), but at the price of a splitting headache. So I lightly pedaled my way home and crawled back in bed for another day.

The next week, I started to slowly get back into the swing of things, with a few easy runs. But at this point, I'm starting to wonder - am I going to have the endurance to finish a half-Ironman in just a couple of weeks? Well, this down 7-10 days was followed by a great "Up": I had to sneak in a long run before work on Friday the 31st, so I decided to run it at an aggressive pace. It turned out not only was I able to keep a 9:20 pace for the first 8 miles, but I was able to drop that down to a 8:50-9:00 pace for the last 4 miles. I ended up running 12 miles at a 9:08 pace!

It looks like the time off was nothing more than a mini-taper, and a good portion of my endurance is still intact. Whew! :) In fact, looking over my running at Nike+, it's pretty clear that I've been consistently hitting my long runs every three weeks:

While I missed some long rides and bricks in there, I know that the hardest leg of the triathlon (for me) is the one I'm best trained for. And with any luck, I'll get in a quality ride this weekend or Monday and will be ready for HulaMan only 7.5 days from now.

Oh, and another piece of good news: it looks like the folks putting on HulaMan made a couple of recent changes to the courses. First off, the bike course has been reworked. As far as I can tell from the course description, there's no longer a downhill on a gravel road 43 miles into the race. One less chance to end up splattered on the side of the road. :) However, I am puzzled a little - it looks like it's a 54 mile ride now (or 53 miles, depending which part of the website you look at). Isn't a half-Ironman really 56 miles??? Hopefully no one will be denied entry to the Kona lottery based on this. The other positive change is that the run course has been changed from a bunch of brutal up and downs to a relatively flatter run. That was the main part that was worrying me, so now I have no excuses, right?

In any case, balancing workload (I didn't mention the business trips to California and Arizona, or the week where I finished between 8pm and 11pm every night, did I???), family life and training has been an interesting challenge. A big thanks to all who have helped by being flexible with schedules and time commitments, and putting up with an often-frazzled triathlete-in-training. Hopefully all of it will pay off with a great event next Sunday!

Until next time...

Potpourri

2009-07-11T20:55:00.000-07:00

A ton of stuff to catch up on with this post, so please bear with me... :)

First of all, it was a decent training week. Not a great training week like last week by any means, but definitely not a lost week like the last two weeks of June. Sunday was a rest day, Monday was an unexpected rest day as well (i.e., work!). I got in a good run Tuesday morning. Then the piece de resistance of the week - a run at 3:30 in the morning. I knew I needed to get in a run, because Thursday was going to be another bear of a day... but I had to leave for a one and a half day business trip to Arizona on a 6am flight. So I set the alarm clock for 3:15am, and shocked myself by actually running at a decent pace:

After that small victory, I took another (scheduled) rest day on Thursday before getting in my every-three-weeks long run on Friday. 14 miles in 2:12. And then a rest day (a vacation day!) on Saturday. Sure, it was only three runs, but three pretty solid runs.

And besides, there was no way I was going to be able to ride this week... the Specialized was in the shop. I mentioned in my last post that my bike was "fixed but having some shifting problems". Unfortunately, it wasn't fixed. I took the bike into River City Bicycles on Monday to finally get it fitted and had their mechanics look at it to see if they could adjust the shifters for me. The mechanic that I got pointed out that the derailleur hanger was still bent, and I left it with them to repair. After more adjustment, and replacement of a bent derailleur, I'm finally back in action. I think... since I haven't gotten a chance to take it out on the roads yet.

Sure, I should have gotten some swimming in. There was a brief glimmer of a plan to do that Thursday afternoon, but between travel fatigue and the opportunity to attend an interesting technical lecture at work scuttled that plan.

And now for something completely different... a few weeks ago, I promised a review of the book Spent by Frank Lipman.

My overall impressions were distinctly mixed. On the plus side, he makes some very good points:

"Western" medicine doesn't account for the holistic interactions of the body's systems and things like environmental contaminants, processed foods and the likes.
Naturopathic and Eastern medicine offer some great complimentary approaches (not alternatives) to Western medicine in treating some of the chronic ailments that affect cube-dwellers like myself.
Life has to be approached in whole - looking at diet, stress, lifestyle, habits, spirit, etc. to address quality of life. Just popping a pill (or just getting acupuncture or just _______) will not "fix" things alone.

Within the book, Dr. Lipman offers a lot of great insights into Eastern / Naturopathic remedies. That being said, I didn't find this part of the book that useful, since I've read up on a lot of his suggestions on the naturopathic side (yes, I have a naturopath, and if she suggests or prescribes something, I'm going to read up on it before ingesting it - same as I do with my general practitioner). But those not familiar with these treatments may find it useful - as long as you take some of it with a grain of salt.

Why the grain of salt? Some of the statements in the book are just flat out wrong. For example, Dr. Lipman maintains in one part of the book that homogenization of milk creates new fats. Looking at the context, it's pretty clear that he's saying that "new fats" means chemically different. I hate to tell the man that homogenization does break up fat globules into smaller globs, but it's still the same fat. If you take a stick of butter and cut it into 16 pats, it's still butter - not dynamite. I realize that taking perfectly good grain and turning it into white bread takes out a lot of the nutrients and pretty much ruins the end product health-wise, but his scattered fear mongering makes me wonder a) how many other mis-statements are in there that I didn't catch, and b) why he feels the need to scare people with falsehoods when there are plenty of scary truths out there about modern diet and stress.

Bottom line: he's got some good ideas, but I'd hesitate to recommend his book to anyone that doesn't already have a solid grounding in both diet/nutrition and naturopathy.

The last tidbit this week is something I mentioned earlier in the post... vacation! Christine, the girls and I are heading down to San Diego for a few days of R&R. A nice family road trip. Today we made it to the Redwood State and National Parks of northern California. As you can see below, we found a nice toppled tree to give us a good background for some pictures. :) I'm not sure what internet connectivity I'm going to have the rest of the trip, so I might not check in again with y'all until the 20th. Until then, aloha!

Back on track

2009-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Yes, it's been a while since I last wrote. There were a couple of week-long business trips to the Midwest following my last post, and I spent the last week getting back on track both at work and with my training. But somehow, I managed to keep the important parts of training in place even during the traveling, although I definitely was scoring low on the consistency meter.

Normally, not posting in three weeks, I'd just skip to what's been going on lately, but I do need to write a little bit about the "epic" training ride that I did on June 14th. What made it epic? First of all, it was my first 50+ mile ride in... almost forever. I think I was 13 or 14 the last time I went that far. The goal for this ride was to ride from home to Forest Grove, where I'd meet up with the second half (actually the last 23 miles) of the HulaMan bike leg. That was the second piece of epic-ness, since mile 42 is where the massive Clapshaw hill is. Little did I know that as fun as climbing the hill would be, the descent would also be quite exciting.

I spent that first 70 minutes cruising at a nice 18.0 mph out to join the race course out at the metropolis of Dilley. Note to self: next time, take it easy on the way out so you don't use all your energy that you'll need for climbing! :) The nice thing about cruising the flats is that I got to take in some beautiful scenery on a misty day, with the fog shrouding the hills that I'd eventually be climbing over and through:

Once I got onto the HulaMan course, it was nothing but rollers - some small, some larger. One of the larger rollers was the exact same hill that I curse every year when I run the Oregon Road Runners Club Y2K race. (Side note: This year, it was a 10k and a 20.09k - next year it'll be a 10k and a 20.10k. See the theme? If you run the long distance, you're guaranteed a PR every year up until 2109 or 2110 when it'll be half-marathon distance!)

A little while later, I passed several vineyards, hitting a portion of Oregon wine country that I didn't realize existed. Then I turned off onto Clapshaw Hill road, and saw a hill that will surely be my arch nemesis on August 16th:

Yes, the road is perfectly flat until it hit the trees. If you look closely you can see the yellow sign that warns cars of the upcoming switchbacks. I was pretty happy getting up the first couple of switchbacks chugging along at a 7-8 mph pace, but then my over-loaded frame conspired with gravity to slow me down. Eventually, on the two steepest sections I had to actually get off an walk for about a minute on each. Fortunately, only the trees were around to snicker at me (unlike the last time I had to walk a hill, when a guy on a tractor got in a good chuckle as he was passing).

Once I got to the top, the fun really began. The descent is steep and steady. Since the road curved slightly and I had no idea what was up ahead, I rode my brakes a bit and still hit 37 mph. I did see a trio of cyclists heading up the hill in the other direction and was thinking that they've got a crazy descent ahead of them with the switchbacks! When the road flattened out again and my speed dropped a bit below 30, I was presented with a dilemma: approximately 8 teen Sunday School students from Hillside Bible Church walking almost perfectly spread out across the road.

After somehow dodging them, the road was still slightly downhill when I saw a fork in the road. I knew I was supposed to dart left on Old Clapshaw Hill Road, but the road on the left was a descent on gravel versus going straight on pavement. No way, they wouldn't do that, would they? After I flew past the fork, I saw the sign - yep, I'm supposed to go down the gravel. I slowed down, turned around, took the fork and then had the most puckering 5-10 minutes of riding in my entire life. Riding my brakes the whole way, I was still hitting 15-16 mph... and this is the first time ever I've had 1" tires on gravel.

Finally the road flattened out, and I was actually able to enjoy riding on the gravel at a steadier pace for the conditions. And right before I turned back onto the tri course, I was able to get a nice picture. Keep in mind that this is the flat part, and doesn't do any justice for the descent portion. If I ride this beast again before the tri, I'll be sure to take a good picture. :)

The last 8 miles was pretty uneventful, other than the fact I was thrashed. Between the pretty solid pace on the way out to the course, the challenging rollers, and the gnarly hill, I was done. So on the way back, I was lucky to keep a 16mph pace even on the flats. It was a solid ride, though, and I managed to do the 54.7 miles in 3:20.

Now fast forward a week - a business trip to Wisconsin left me with zero time for training, but I still managed to get in a long run the following weekend: a 12 mile jaunt in 1:53. Yes, I actually kept a 9:23 pace. I guess the week of laziness acted like a mini-taper. :)

Fast forward another week - a business trip to Minnesota, where I did manage to get in a single 5k mile run through the morning humidity. But this time, I didn't manage to get in the scheduled brick - I was hoping to ride 1-1.5 hours then run 4-5 miles, but between spending time re-acquainting myself with the family and celebrating my 38th birthday the weekend brick didn't happen.

However, last Sunday, I managed to start one of the best training weeks I've had... since college? Here's a quick summary:

Sunday 4 mile run
Monday 3.5 mile run
Tuesday 5k run
Wednesday 2000 yards in the pool (at a speedy 500s on 8:30 pace!)
Thursday rest day
Friday long ride (more about that below)
Saturday 7 mile ride at a quick 18.7 mph pace (basically a TT in honor of the 1st stage of the Tour de France!)

The long ride yesterday was the best of times, the worst of times. The plan was to ride from home to Hagg Lake, do a lap around the lake (the tri is 1.5 laps) and follow the tri route back to Dilley, then hop over to the tri half-marathon course, ride it, and ride back home for a 55-60 mile ride. It started out great: I kept a 17.0-17.5 mph pace on the way out, leaving me plenty of energy left to deal with the heat (started at 70F, expecting 85F by the end of the ride) and also deal with the hills around the lake.

When I got out to the lake, I had another case of deja vu. Some of the more challenging hills on the SE shore of the lake are the same ones that I powered up on the way to my post-college 10k PR of 52:56 at the ORRC Hagg Lake runs. And once you get fully around the lake, there's another huge descent coming down off a hill, past the dam, down to the state park gate - hitting 35 mph between cars that are also going 30-40 is just a little bit nerve wracking.

Disaster hit once I made the turn onto Old Highway 47. My front derailleur has proven itself to be a little mal-adjusted, as occasionally downshifting on hills, I pop the chain off the small chainring. The first hill I hit on Old 47, it happened again. I've gotten pretty good (I thought) at slowly pedaling the chain back onto the chainring, but not this time. All my pedaling resulted in was the chain somehow jumping off the biggest rear cog into my rear hug, taking the rear derailleur with it, right into the spokes. For those of you that aren't cyclists... that means your rear wheel not longer turns. Fortunately, I had lost a lot of momentum going up the hill, and the slow motion crash that occured was basically due to me not being able to clip out of my pedals quickly enough. It was probably pretty funny, but there was only a wheat field there to watch me.

Fortunately, my brother-in-law was able to come out and get me (I never leave home on a ride without the BlackBerry!), but the bike was more than a little messed up. The force of the derailleur hitting the spokes, transferring all that angular momentum into the derailleur, managed to mangle the derailleur hanger:

Yes, that purple part is supposed to be parallel to the cogs, not crashing into them. And guess what - if that aluminum hanger breaks when you try to straighten it out, you get to buy a new frame. Yikes! Fortunately, once I got back in, I was able to head into Performance Bike in Beaverton, where a mechanic named Eric managed to straighten it out without breaking it, essentially saving a few thousand dollars in the process (for the cost of $20 labor). So other than a scary few hours where I thought the bike was a fatality, and the disappointment of cutting a 60 mile ride to a 32.5 mile ride, it was actually a pretty good day - I still had a lot of energy left after the first 30 miles, so apparently I've learned how to pace myself. :)

Today I did get in a brief ride just to check out the bike (as well as log a stage for MapMyRide's virtual Tour de France). There are still some problems shifting - the rear gears shift just fine when on the small chainring, but I have trouble getting onto the large ring, and when I'm there, there are all sorts of phantom shifts on the rear cogs. It was great fun powering up a small hill only to have my bike shift into a tougher gear all on it's own. :-| I am getting the bike fitted on Monday morning, so maybe they can do a bit of maintenance to bring it the rest of the way back from the dead!

Thus ends, the best calendar week I've had in a long while. We'll see if I can keep it up next week. I've got a long run planned for Friday before work, but have a 1.5 day business trip on Wed/Thurs, so we'll how this week goes. Hopefully I can get in a ride and a swim, along with a couple of runs... it's felt great getting in this level of fitness!

That's all for now folks - I know we've got a fun 4th of July afternoon and evening planned, and I wish all of you a great 4th as well!

So far, so good

2009-06-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

In my last post, you probably noted that I was fighting off a bug - well, the bug is history, and so far it's been a pretty good week. On Tuesday, I had a bit of insomnia - the internal alarm went off at 3:30 in the morning, and for whatever reason I couldn't get back to sleep. So after surfing the internet on the BlackBerry while lounging in bed (and trying not to wake up my wife), I decided that I'd take advantage of the early Oregon daylight and get in a 5am run. I managed to crush a 4-miler - slightly under an 8:30 pace, making it one of my faster runs. And I love the fact that an early morning run really helps you get going for the day.

Wednesday was another good run. Sure, I slept in since I was sleep-deprived from the insomnia the day before, but I got in a nice 5 mile run at a reasonable 8:45ish pace. And when I synched my iPod after my run, I realized that I was now in first place in a Portland marathon training challenge that a friend put together. We'll see how long that lasts after he gets back from injury, though...

In other news, I finally got a new bike helmet. My friends at Performance Bike were having their anniversary sale, and between it and the 15% off coupon I had, I managed to get a new Giro Ionos for 30% off:

Sure, it would have been great to get one in the LiveSTRONG colors, but you can't beat 30% off on a quality product!

Speaking of quality products, I'm only a few chapters into it, but Spent by Frank Lipman looks to be a great read so far.

It delves into the fact that a ton of us are overstressed from various aspects of life, and as a result have no energy. That is me. In fact, in Chapter 1 there's a 13 item questionnaire that highlights the maladies that can come from modern life. Sadly, I scored in the 10+ category (but not all 13!). So far, it looks like it's a good combination of western medicine, naturopathy, Chinese medicine and various other holistic treatments. Yeah, it looks like there's probably some snake oil there too, so I'll let you know what I think of it once I finish.

Well, that's all for today... in between conference calls, so I've gotta run. Wish me luck getting in a run sometime this afternoon to keep the streak going!

A change in plans

2009-06-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the last post, Saturday was supposed to be a long ride. I figured that I did a long ride two weekends ago, then a (sort of) long run one weekend ago, so Saturday should have been a long ride. Then I would transition to a three week cycle: long ride, brick, long run. Well, it looked like it would be a little more convenient to get in a pretty full day with the family to do a shorter workout than a 3-3.5 hour ride. So... time for my first brick of the season!

The brick started out ok... I had a pretty good ride. Sure, I tried going up Cooper Mountain, my arch nemesis which gains ~400 ft in ~3/4 mile (that's a ~10% grade!), and the score is now Cooper 3, Mike 0. However, at least this time I got up the first steep wall and actually had a little acceleration across the first false flat before the second steep incline. With some solid training this summer, I should be beating that thing sometime before the half-Ironman. I hope.

70 minutes after setting out, I got back to the house. Made a pretty quick transition - changed shirts (yep, I don't have a tri singlet yet, and I wasn't going to run in a long-sleeve thick cycling jersey), plopped on my shoes and iPod and headed out the door. And of course, my legs felt like I was running through wet cement. Or oatmeal. Or mud. Or maybe all three. My planned run was going to be a 4 mile run, but after a mile... ugh. My legs were starting to feel better, but the digestive system was warning me something was up. I cut it short, got home without any incidents, and called it a day. But when I checked out my Nike+ workout summary, I got a pretty good laugh:

What exactly is that? Was I really speeding up and slowing down that much? Is that what a bricked run looks like? Looks like I need to work on the bricks a bit more...

Right now, I'm still fighting off whatever bug came on during the run, but hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get back to training and put in a couple of solid runs on Tues & Wed. Maybe even get in a mid-week ride? Would love to get to the point where there's only one rest day per week, because I need to put in some serious focus on burning some calories (and not putting them back on) if I ever want to even the score on Cooper Mountain!

A crazy & busy week

2009-06-05T20:39:00.001-07:00

Hi all - sorry for not posting lately, but it's been a pretty busy week on the work front, as well as the challenge of getting in a few workouts. It started out last weekend with a planned long run on Saturday that definitely didn't go as planned. May in Oregon has a habit of fluctuating between summer-like weather and the rainy drizzle that stereotypes the Northwest. The weekend of May 30/31 decided that it was going to act like summer. Which is definitely nice if you want to get in yardwork or relaxing on the deck or spending some leisure time outside, but not if you want to get in a run. On top of that, I made the cardinal mistake of sleeping in - so by the time I got out there, it was already 57 degrees and rising fast.

The run was planned for 12.5 miles - run from home to the Nike campus, run the 2 mile trail at Nike, and run back. For those of you that haven't been to the Nike campus, it has an amazing loop that goes from woodchip trail through forest to pedestrian bridges across the entrances to the campus, to running by the parking garage that has murals of Michael Jordan, Alberto Salazar, Lance Armstrong and others. And the forested part of the trails are quite beautiful!

The run to Nike was pretty easy - but after 5 miles, I realized that it was starting to get just a bit hot outside. The woods on the Nike campus gave a bit of relief, but by the time I got back on open trails and road, I realized that not only was it hot out, but I had gone out waaayyy too fast (9:11). I probably could have kept up the pace had it not been already 70 degrees outside. So on this day, I let discretion be the better part of valor, and cut it short at 8 miles. And have I ever mentioned that running with a fanny pack is nice, because you can keep your cell phone in it and call your wife (who was running errands in the area) and get a nice air-conditioned ride back home?

On Sunday, since I had cut my long run short, I decided to go for a bike ride. Keep in mind, this would be the first ride with the new rear cassette - and it turned out to be a great purchase. While I didn't tackle any big hills during this ride, I was able to find a more comfortable range of cruising gears (53/21, 53/19) toward the middle of the rear cassette instead of crossing up from the large chainring to the larger gears on the rear. And I was able to take on some smaller hills and work on my climbing - I was able to get up and sustain a solid effort out of the saddle for a solid minute at a time. Sure, it's not a Lance Armstrong-type performance, but it's a good sign that I'm getting more comfortable on the bike.

Monday was a rest day, and Tuesday morning I put in an easy 4 mile run before work. Then the challenge started - a two-day trip to Arizona. Wednesday happened to be National Running Day, so I figured I would somehow squeeze in a run down in AZ. Well, after a pretty long day (up at 4:15am, hours of meetings and conference calls) and a fairly large dinner (PF Chang's is my Achilles heel when I travel down to Chandler), I wasn't quite ready to take on the 98 degree weather at 8pm. So National Running Day went on without me.

Thursday was also an adventure, but I missed out on most of it - we had the rare major thunderstorm in Oregon, and on the flight back, we ended up spending an extra 20 minutes circling the airport waiting for the storm to clear. And once we landed, it was drizzly and humid. It made for an interesting run, but I still managed to get my 3 miles in. All in all, I did manage to sandwich seven good miles (~8:45 pace) around National Running Day.

Today was a bit of a rest day, although I did get some "exercise" in... 9 holes of moderately decent (for me) golf. I shot a 51, which was only 2-3 shots of my best round of 9. The funny thing is that my friend Bryan and I got paired with another random pair. And one of those random folks turned out to be my in-law's across-the-street neighbor. It made for some fun discussions.

The plan for this weekend: long ride tomorrow, then maybe an easy run or swim on Sunday afternoon. I'm shooting for a 3 hour ride tomorrow, and it looks like I should be able to ride out to the lake where the swim leg and first half of the bike leg of my impending half-Ironman will be held. So I started doing some research on the tri course. I knew that the bike was supposed to be "challenging", and the new run course for this year was also a bit hilly, and here's what I found for the bike:

That doesn't look so bad! But I know that I've had problems with MapMyRide before, giving false elevations... so let's see what VeloRoutes.org says:

Yes, the mileage is off by about 30% for some weird reason, but the elevation looks pretty accurate: total gain of 4000+ feet. And look at that isolated hill (which is really around mile 42)... nasty. Looks like it'll be a good idea to get some time on the roads out there before August 16th. I'm not planning to do that this weekend - just checking out the first few miles of the bike will be fine - but I've got two more long rides scheduled between now and the tri... better get out there and find out what I've gotten myself into. And right now, I don't even want to see the elevation gain and loss on the run.

I hope everyone out there has a good weekend and is able to get outside. I'll let you know how the long ride goes next time I check in...

Small world...

2009-05-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone... a little late getting out this post, but better late than never. First, a training update: last Saturday and Sunday, I had a couple of nice, easy runs. Five miles on Saturday at around an 8:45 pace, and four miles on Sunday at an 8:40 pace. On Monday, I took advantage of the day off and put in an epic (for me) ride. Around 41 miles in 2:40. The first major hill showed up around 9 miles, and based upon my current level of fitness and the gearing on the bike (39x23), I decided to skirt the first hill. Over the next 15-20 miles, I got into a pretty good rhythm, maintaining a 17.5-19 mph pace on the flats and rollers that abound in the Tualatin River valley.

Then the trouble started... I had a T in the road where I could either take a left to a direct downhill toward home, or a right to a set of hills that I knew were going to be a challenge. I took the right, and the fun began almost immediately. A nice speedy downhill was quickly followed by two pretty significant hills that I forgot were there. How significant? Well, in cycling shoes, they each take about 5 minutes to walk up... the 39x23 was not happening. But after I got up the second hill, things got a lot better. The next big hill wasn't so big, and I was actually able to keep a good 90 rpm cadence up it. And when I crested the top, I immediately hit 40+ mph on the downhill - while riding the brakes, since this was an incredibly steep hill with lots of pucker factor. It gave me enough momentum to get up the next huge hill without pedaling at all. A slightly technical descent, and then a nice easy ~10 mile pedal home.

After all that fun, I took a rest day on Tuesday - and took the bike in to get a new rear cassette (12/27, so I can hopefully start to actually pedal up those hills). I'm definitely looking forward to trying some hills on Friday or sometime over this weekend. I also took another rest day today, since I had the weekly trip down to Arizona for work.

During my flight to Arizona, I got to chat with a coworker that I hadn't talked to for a while. Even though he's a close enough friend that he ushered at my wedding, and I knew he had run a marathon and a few halfs and 10ks over the last 10-15 years, he surprised me with the fact that he's completed a variety of tri's, including Wildflower. We had the opportunity to chat about training strategies, refueling (Gatorade, Gu and salt tablets, oh my!) and the wonders of the "natural break" during and/or after the cycling leg. It was great to be able to chat with someone who had accomplished the same goals that I'm hoping to this summer, especially when I had no idea he'd enjoyed the 6-7 hours of a half-Ironman. Small world indeed.

On a completely unrelated topic, I did have to brag a little bit. Last Friday, my wife got up at 4:45am to get in her morning workout - and Jonathan Roche, the inventor of the No Excuses Workout program, took note on his Twitter account:

Kinda cool to see your spouse recognized for hard work and dedication in the cyber world. :)

The plan for the next few days is get in a little base training Thursday and Friday - hopefully a run Thursday morning and an easy ride Friday morning. Then we'll see how the first long run since the marathon goes, with 10-12 planned for either Saturday or Sunday. Definitely looking forward to testing out the legs and see if the running endurance is still there 4 weeks after Eugene!

Triathlon training begins

2009-05-19T12:05:00.001-07:00

The last few days have been good for training, but I have a challenge coming up as we shall see...

After recovering from the back issues I was battling last week, I got back outside on Friday morning. I got up early to put in a chilly 5k - cold enough that the stocking cap came in handy. Saturday I went for the early wake-up again and got in another 4 miles, and the back (and legs) felt fine. After helping my brother-in-law assemble some furniture at his new condo, I had some time in the evening. Now what was it that I had on my to do list? Oh yeah, get the road bike ready for a ride.

A little background: I came into this road bike via inheritance. My uncle, a very avid cyclist, passed away unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm four years ago at the age of 56. At the time, he owned a small fleet of bicycles - a top-of-the-line road bike, a TT bike, a Specialized Epic Comp road bike (yes, I realize the only Epics out there now are MTBs, but apparently they use to have an Epic road) and his old Peugeot road bike. My aunt sold his top-end bike, as it was still relatively new, and my cousin got the TT bike. But when my aunt passed last September, the Specialized and Peugeot were not spoken for.

It was a couple of months before that I started riding my roaded-out mountain bike (mainly because I had my wonderful runner's knee and wanted some exercise) and somehow got the crazy triathlon bug. And I'm thinking - what am I going to do for a bike, because there's no way I'm riding 56 miles on a cheap mountain bike with road tires. Well, when going through the estate, my cousins let me pick up the Specialized, which is a great bike. And I got the Peugeot as well, of which I have some fond memories. Back in middle school, when I first started running and cycling (before I quit, restarted, quit again and restarted again), my aunt & uncle would come visit nearly every summer. Bill and I would go for a ride - sometimes the 10.5 mile loop in the countryside near home, once a 50+ miler down the local highway. And what was he riding? It was always that Peugeot - so that bike will always serve as a reminder of what was and what can be.

So Saturday night, there I am in my home office, wrestling the Specialized off the trainer it had been attached to all winter. I got out my spiffy bicycle maintenance book to figure out how to adjust the shifters (having problems shifting to the large chainring), adjusting the saddle (angle was a bit off), adjusting the cleats (this will be my first time using clipless pedals outside) and making sure I have the tires pumped full enough (one guy at the bike shop I always go to recommended that "a guy like me" try to pump up to 115 psi rather than just 110 psi....). I even took it for a brief spin outside after, just to make sure it'd be ready for the morning.

Come Sunday morning, I'm up at 5:30am. Yeah, that doesn't happen often. I want to get in a solid ride before heading off to church. I eat breakfast and get out the door by 6:30am, and decide I'm going to ride a route I rode a couple of times last fall - one with a gnarly hill about 14 miles into the ride. How gnarly? According to Veloroutes.org, it's got 485 feet of climbing in just 1.5 miles or so. That includes a couple of false flats. Last summer, I barely made it up the first 80 feet of the climb before realizing heavy rider + heavy bike = not getting up the hill.

The first 10 miles of my ride on the Specialized, and I'm cruising right along. The ride is smooth, it's so much more responsive than my mountain bike (a little too much, sometimes - need to work on the bike handling skills!) and I'm enjoying what's turning out to be a beautiful day. But on the couple of small hills I encounter in the first part of the ride, I realize that this bike is geared for certifiable studs only (I later confirm that the rear cassette is a 12/23 and the front a 53/39). So I decide to skip the big hill in favor of a route I hadn't rode before. Well, it turned out I still got to enjoy a good 200 foot climb followed by a descent that had significant pucker factor - mainly because I haven't been riding 37 mph on a city street with traffic before! After that was another 200 foot climb at a pretty steady grade... there I was in my granny gear in the bike lane, struggling to make it up (note to self - get up out of the saddle next time!). But I did make it up, and had a nice and enjoyable ~2 mile descent at a 25+ mph speeds. And despite later missing a shift and popping the chain off the chainring, I managed to make it home, get showered and still make it to church.

While it was a great ride, hopefully next time I'll be smart enough to not only get up out of the saddle and "dance on the pedals" for a little more uphill momentum, but I'll take a nice warmdown too. Sitting down for the entire climb made the outside of my calves incredibly tight, and coupled with the lack of warmdown, made me almost immobile by 8pm. Thus, Monday was a rest day... even though it was already scheduled to be a rest day, there was no way I could have run had I wanted to.

This morning I did get up for the early run again, and managed a nice 3.5 miles in between the overnight rains and the morning rains (and as I type this on my lunch break, I see the noon rains getting pretty heavy). Even though I was sleepy, it felt great to be out there - but the sleepiness will mount this week.

Remember the challenge I mentioned? Well, there's actually two of them. The first one is how do I work in the swimming that I'll need to get into tri shape? I'm sure I'll figure that one out assuming I can find some Friday or weekend time. But the bigger challenge this week (and likely for several weeks in June) is how to keep up the schedule while traveling? I suspect it means lack of sleep. Tomorrow is the usual 6am flight to Arizona, which for me means waking up at 4:30am. Then a full day of meetings when I get there... my last meeting is a 8pm-9pm teleconference. That means that tomorrow is an automatic rest day, and if I want to run Thursday it's either waking up early (have to be on site for an 8am meeting) or running when I get home (assuming the flight lands on time at 7pm). And if I do run while I'm in Arizona, how pleasant is it going to be to run at 5:30am when it's already 78 degrees out, or something ridiculous like that? This schedule is definitely going to be a tough nut to crack, but I've got all the motivation I need... I've got that half-Ironman on the calendar, now only 89 days away. :)

Training update - 5/13/09

2009-05-13T19:05:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, there's nothing new to report on the training front. This has been a very frustrating week. I did get in a run last Saturday morning, which allowed me to work the kinks out. There was a bit of tightness in my right knee (which was the one that had runner's knee last year which shut me down for a couple of months), so I decided to take a rest day on Sunday. Afterall, it was Mother's Day, and we had a pretty busy day planned. The girls made Christine breakfast after she got back from her run, we did the card & gift thing, then went off to church. After that, we had about an hour and a half at home for lunch and some homework before going off to the in-laws for a great Mother's Day / birthday (for the Mother-in-law) celebration. A little bit too much good food (pork tenderloin, corn, zucchini, strawberry short cake), but nothing that a good week of running will take care of... right?

Well, Monday morning I got a late start, which was fine because my meetings were once again concentrated in the 2pm - 9pm timeframe. But as I was getting out of the shower, I twisted wrong as I was picking up my towel - and the next thing I know, pain is shooting up my back from just below my ribs to between my shoulder blades. I go meet a colleague for lunch thinking it will go away, but apparently not. It got worse as the day went on. So I went back home, sent out an out-of-office memo to those who needed to know, and crawled into bed with some painkiller (codeine-flavored tylenol).

Tuesday when I woke up, I was still in pain - but wonderfully hung over from the codeine. I set up a chiropractor appointment, but then I made the mistake of going into work. While standing up and lying down both felt fine, sitting in an office chair (even my spiffy ergo-friendly one) was excruciating. After an hour, I went back home and laid around until the appointment. Our naturopath / chiropractor generally does a good job, and I felt fine after the appointment - for about an hour, at which point the pain was coming back. At least this time I had her guidance of using arnica for the inflammation and an interesting valerian root / passion flower remedy as a muscle relaxant. After using those plus a heating pad, I actually feel somewhat human as I write this Wednesday night.

So for now, running is on hold... I do hope that I feel good enough to go out for a run either tomorrow afternoon (there's a hole in the schedule from 4-6pm!) or Friday morning. Wish me luck!

Eugene marathon race report

2009-05-09T18:19:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was a blast - I got to spend a relaxing weekend with Christine and the girls, sandwiched around a good run. It was a truly amazing event, and I hope my words can do it justice.

We drove down to Eugene Saturday afternoon. After a few days of pretty good weather (considering it's spring in Oregon), a Pacific weather system decided to move in for the weekend. I packed well: running jacket, cap and gloves - but it wasn't cold enough to justify long pants. On the two hour drive down, we drove through some very heavy rainstorms. All the while I'm thinking, "I'm going to be running through THIS tomorrow? This has the potential to be miserable!"

Fortunately by the time we got into Eugene and got to the expo, the really heavy squalls had past. The expo itself was great - a good range of exhibitors, easy packet pickup, and importantly, I joined up with the Clif Bar Pace Team. Specifically the 4:15 group. On my long runs, I had been training at a 9:35ish pace... and bonking and cramping around 18 miles. I figure that I can back off to a 9:44 pace and have enough left in the tank to make it to at least 22, maybe 24 miles, then use willpower to get through the last few miles. Nice idea, but it didn't quite work, as we'll see later.

For dinner, we went to McGrath's fish house. I truly carbo-loaded before running Portland in 2007, and I found out that my body doesn't really take well to carbo-loading. For me, it basically leads to frequent appreciation of where the course organizers have placed the portajohns. This time I figure that since we're eating a pretty healthy mix of carbs and lean protein at home, I should do the same the night before the race. After a decent crab cake appetizer and a nice salmon dish with potatoes, mission accomplished. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and vegged out until I turned in around 10pm.

The alarm goes off at 4:30... wow, it's early. Only an hour earlier than the usual wake-up time, so fortunately it doesn't seem too ridiculous. Also, typical of some runners, I was scarcely able to sleep through the night, so I wasn't completely groggy but did get enough sleep to feel rested. After my usual breakfast of Trader Joe's Os, I start downing Ultima replenisher drink at 6am to get some electrolytes into the system.

6am we start to make our way to the race area. There's no parking close by, so Christine drops me off at 6:20. By 6:40, I'm safely in the 10:00 and faster starting corral, I've found my pace group, and Christine and the girls come find me. Which is great, for a couple of reasons: 1) it was awesome to get some last minute encouragement from the loved ones; 2) my Amphipod race number belt managed to destroy my bib, so I gave the belt to Chrsitine rather than carry the extra gear for 26 miles. On the bright side, there were a couple of folks in the pace group who donated a couple of pins so I could pin my bib on my shirt (thanks, Wendy and whoever else!).

7am and the gun goes off as expected. Since we're toward the back of the fast corral, we don't get to the line for about two minutes. But once we do, we're off and running - and immediately the whole concept of a pace group comes in handy. Nearly every race that I run, from 4 miles to marathon, I go out too fast in the first mile. Having a pacer there holding us back was great... instead of bolting out of the gate too fast, I race the first mile in 9:50 - within 6 seconds of the goal pace, and on the slow side. But then the big downhill comes on mile two. The pacer (Star) constantly talked to us, giving pointers on how best to run downhill to save our quads for the important miles. And downhill we fly... second mile goes by in 9:19. However, we still have a bit of momentum and even more downhill - mile 3 in 8:41. At this point, I'm starting to get a bit worried, but I'll see how it looks once the downhill ends.

During mile 4, I start to get in my groove. That wonderful feeling that you can run forever. I'm running a 9:30-9:40 pace on the flats, and it feels easy. I also start to notice the crowd a bit more. The crowd was hard not to notice in the first two miles around the University, but now we're in the residential section, and there are people (and occasional bands and street performers) out to encourage us. The only downside is that on the other side of the greenway we see runners coming back from the turnaround at 5 miles. And we continue to see them. And even more runners... it makes miles 3-5 seem like they go on forever.

After the turnaround, we get more running tips from Star. She points out that most of the group gets ahead of her every time we pass a band or a radio truck - not only are downhills our enemies, but music subconciously makes us speed up unless we're very intentional about running a slow pace. She also gives us one of the tidbits that will probably stay with me the rest of my life: running a marathon is really three races. The first 10 miles, you're running with your head. You're pacing yourself, you're using your mind to keep your body under control on the downhills and when you pass those bands that trick us into speeding up and wasting the energy we'll need later. The second race, miles 11-20, you're running with your legs. This is why we train, this is why we have the long runs leading up to the marathon. This is where the endurance pays off, and our legs, now accustomed to the pace, take us up to mile 20. The last race, the last 6 miles, you race with your heart. Your head is telling you that you want to (or need to) stop. Your legs are begging "no more!" I keep this advice in mind not only because it's wisdom from someone who's run 106 marathons, but also because I know that I'll need it later.

Miles 5-7 are pretty much cruising, then onto a greenway through Amazon park for the 8th mile. At this point, I realize that our pace group is being rude and taking up the entire path. Yes, we need to move over, but I think - who are these crazy yahoos sprinting past us on the grass? Star reminds us that we'll see them later, and they probably won't be running. Especially since if they've been behind us for 7 miles, why are they running a sprint at mile 8? Hopefully for their sake, they're all running the half marathon. :)

Mile 9 is back up that hill that we saw at mile 2. Wow it's steep, but the wonders of the pace group again - Star reminds us that we need to take shorter steps and down worry about slowing down up the hill. I'm really digging this pace group... until we pass 8 miles in a little less than 76 minutes. Can you say 9:30 pace for the first 8 miles? And I was bonking at 18 miles on a 9:35 pace? This is suddenly looking like it could be a long day - but it also could be a major PR, so I figure I'll stick with the pace group as long as possible.

The marker for mile 9 is back in the start area, and another pacer joins us. Around mile 10, he points out that people who use GPS or Nike+ during their marathons actually log about 27 miles during the race, darting back and forth across the road, to the water stations, and not cutting the tangents as closely as they could. That thought enters my mind that I actually need to run 27 miles in 4:15, which is actually a much speedier pace (9:27). Hmmm... starting to worry just a bit. At mile 11, the second pacer (name was Jim or Ron - but I can't remember for sure) sidles up and chats with me for a while. He's just a rookie compared to Star, as this is only his 46th marathon, having started doing this crazy marathon stuff in 2001. Pshaw - only 5-6 a year? What does he know? :)

Around mile 12, I start to float out in front of our group. Not too far - about 100-200 yards, which means I can still hear 90% of Star's commentary. I do hear her promise us a story around mile 17, so I'm going to make sure I don't get too far away from the group. I do pass through the half marathon check in under 2:07. At this point, I'm feeling pretty good, so I'm not sure whether I should be happy or worried. :) I have been keeping myself well-hydrated up til now. While I did miss one water station around mile 3 or 4, I've hit all the other ones, and had two, sometimes three, cups of water at each. And most of the water has been going down the hatch, although there were a couple of noteable spills. And I've been keeping myself well-fed too. At mile 2 I broke out the first pack of Clif ShotBloks. Three blocks (100 calories) every two miles, so I'm taking in a good amount of energy. I'm also taking four Hammer Endurolytes every five miles, hoping to stave off the cramping that I encountered back in Portland.

By mile 15, two things are starting to happen. First, I'm starting to feel a little bit... tired. Exhausted. Not sleepy, but worn out - strangely, like I've been running for two and a half hours. I'm still out in front of the group by a hundred yards, and I hear Star telling everyone "if you're starting to feel tired, that's perfectly normal - you've been running for over 15 miles". So all systems are still go, and miles are still clicking off between 9:37 and 9:48 pace. But also, the sun is starting to peek out. Remember that rain that was so nasty on the drive down, and was supposed to be here all weekend? Well it was drizzling for the first two miles, so I felt pretty secure in my jacket and hat. But now it's been more or less dry for two hours, and I'm still wearing that jacket. Yeah, it's unzipped almost all the way down, but it's still on. There will be good and bad results from that....

By mile 17, I've rejoined the pace group. We're all running together on the Willamette River trail. For me, no more running out ahead, and besides, I want to hear Star's story. But by the time she's getting to the good part (it's about her trying to run an aggressive pace at a marthon in 90 degree weather 6 weeks after being dumped by her boyfriend) we're at mile 18, and I realize I'm headed for bonkville. So I drop off the pace and am now running miles of 9:58-10:04. And by mile 21, I slow down to 10:19. Mile 21 is also important, as it's the river crossing that will put us on the south bank, and it's pretty much a straight line back along the river to the finish. But finally, around 21.5 miles into this thing, the legs and head win out over the heart - I decide I'm going to walk for a while. In retrospect, maybe - just maybe - I could have slowed down to a nice 11:00 or 11:30 pace and kept running, but I think the walk break - about three quarters of a mile - rejuvenated me enough to bring it home in decent style.

While I was on said walk break, I did pass someone that was either unconscious or pretty darn near it. She had someone holding her, wrapped in a blanket, and a couple of other runners had just called the paramedics, who I could hear coming from somewhere close by. Note to self: do not end up like that.

At the same time this is going on, I start to notice something. The crowds, which have been amazing all along, are really starting to use people's names (for those of you that don't know, you usually have the option of putting your name on the bib along with your number). While I'm walking, I get people yelling "Great job, Mike, you're doing great!". That's enough to inspire the heart; a little after the marker for mile 22, I get back to running at a nice trot, around a 10:00 pace. I even get into a groove - run 4-6 minutes, walk a minute. And lo and behold, I'm making progress. And people are continuing to cheer me on. And I'm remembering Star saying that you run the last 6 miles with your heart. Well, mind and body got the best of the heart at mile 21.5, but now the heart is clearly winning and carrying the day.

By mile 25, I've got that goofy smile plastered across my face, and I can't get it off. I'm not going to make my goal pace of 4:15, but I'm probably going to break 4:30 and take at least 40 minutes off my PR. And I'm having fun! One more walk break around 25.5 miles, and I realize that I'm running the rest of this thing. Who cares that it's uphill... my mind could clearly see that it was uphill toward the finish, but my body didn't feel it - the heart was pulling me along. Around that last corner, and I can see the finish banner. A few more steps and I see Christine and the girls taking pictures and cheering me on! A couple more steps, and I hear them call out my name over the loudspeaker as a finisher of the Eugene marathon. Wow! There's even a small bit of video of me finishing around 4:28:06 "gun time": http://bit.ly/pVfIc. Crossing that line at a normal running pace was an experience like no other!

The aftermath: well, it took me probably ten minutes to get my bearings, as I was completely out of gas - no sugar left in this body (I stopped eating around mile 20 because I was getting nauseous), so no energy for the brain to run on. And once I stopped after the finish line, my legs didn't want to move anymore. And I could barely put anything back into my body. I did drink some water and some SoBe stuff, but could only eat two Famous Amos mini-chocolate chip cookies for the first hour or so. But Christine got me safely back to the hotel, where I was finally able to eat the rest of my Famous Amos cookies and take a shower. Two hours in the car later, and we were safely back home with me not looking forward to climbing up the stairs, but very much looking forward to an epsom salt bath - which works wonders for reducing muscle soreness.

This was an amazing, incredible experience, and I did learn a few things:

Star's three races of the marathon. Incredible wisdom.
Slower pace group next time. I should have run with the 4:30ers and then left them behind around mile 10-13. Probably could have run a 4:20-4:22 had I run negative splits, but I left too much out there the first 10 miles.
Ditch the jacket. Unless it's raining cats and dogs, don't worry about a little cold and wet - there'll be enough heat generated by running to keep me warm, and when that sun came out, it was just brutal. Or at least tie the jacket around the waist next time. I'm pretty sure it didn't cost me much, but it did probably make me sweat a little extra and make the bonk come a little earlier
Bandaids for those sensitive areas. Christine mentioned that they saw a lot of men with two bloody spots finishing. Well, as soon as I took off my jacket, I realized I was one of those men too. (Fortunately all the during and after-race pictures are of me with my jacket on!) I put on plenty of Glide, but apparently it wasn't enough. Next time, bandaids or athletic tape or something. It didn't hurt during the race, but the shower after was killer.
Eugene is an amazing running town. The crowds were incredible. The people during the last five miles along the river were amazing - some of them were clearly spectators, but some just seemed to be out for a day at the park and decided to cheer us on anyway. And the volunteers were amazing too. I do hope I get to run this one again, because it can give the Portland marathon - also an amazing event - a run for it's money.

There are probably a lot of other things I could have written about - but having almost a week to reflect, these are the things that stick out. I'm definitely looking forward to the next marathon (Portland on October 4th), as well as the next chance I get to run in Eugene. Who knows, maybe this fall or next spring I'll finally break that 4:15 goal? :)

So just what is this blog called?

2009-05-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

OK, yes, I've changed the name of this blog. I fully expect that at some point I'll be posting on the challenges of sticking to a training program while working 45-60 hours a week in a grey carpeted cubicle, but at the same time, I realized that there are going to be a number of posts on here (hopefully interesting ones!) that will have all to do with running (or cycling or swimming or...) and nothing to do with career and work. With that in mind, I put my engineering mind to brainstorming to come up with a name. What is this blog going to be about? Running. My experiences with running. So very creatively, I came up with a new name... Running with Mike G. Enjoy... and with any luck, there will be a race report from last weekend coming soon!

Training Update 4/30/09

2009-04-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it's now just 3 days until marathon #2 for me. Ready as I'll ever be. :) I had a little run-in with some stomach issues over the weekend, so training didn't go quite as planned. I ended up taking Sunday and Monday off, then got in an easy 5k Tuesday night (~8:45 pace) and an easy 3.3 miles Wednesday night (~9:00 pace). I feel a little drained of energy since I had to fly to Arizona and back on Wednesday, but I suspect a trifecta of rest days should fix me right up. It'd be nice to get in one more easy run before the marathon, but I don't want to run the two days before the race - and I'm not going to push it tonight, so I guess two days this week will be it.

The race on Sunday starts around 7am. With any luck, I'll be finishing around 11:15... wish me luck, everyone!

Motivation, planning and goal-setting

2009-04-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

This week was a particularly challenging week from a work standpoint. Conference calls until 11pm on Monday, 9pm on Wednesday and 9pm on Thursday. Couple that with a few morning meetings, and it was a long week... so how to keep training during a week like that?

For me, the most important thing that I've found is to have a target race that I'm training for. In this case, it's the Eugene marathon, which is coming up in a scant 7 days. But after that, it'll be preparation for the Hulaman Half Ironman in August or the Portland Marathon in October. In 2006, I ran the Portland Marathon 5-miler, and watching the marathoners start their race, I was moved to sign up to run my first marathon in 2007. Having that race on the calendar was very motivating - I always had a goal in front of me. I knew that while I could get lazy and take a day or two off, I also knew that if I fell completely off my training plan, it would jeopardize my marathon goal. I was able to stick to my training plan for a full 12 months. There were a few adjustments along the way as I got smarter about my training, but I managed to stick to basically the same plan over the course of that year.

However, after I ran PDX in October 2007, I let the typical post-marathon rest period turn into an extended excuse for life as a sloth. Sure, I told myself I'd do Portland again in 2008, but I hadn't registered for any major races, and come January 2008, I'd gained 12-13 pounds and had almost zero cardio base. By the time I got around to starting serious training for PDX in June, I ended up trying to play catch up - which of course, resulted in over-training in the form of a nasty case of runner's knee requiring a month and a half rest and three months of physical therapy.

When I started getting back on track with my training in the fall of 2008, I set myself a couple of goals. The first wasn't so much a goal, but a philosophy to live by: I was going to make sure I get a good base in - and keep that base, so not only will I be able to target any race given 2-3 months to train for the distance, but also to ensure that I'm healthy and fit. And then I looked over the calendar and set my major race goals for 2009, to give me something to shoot for: the Hulaman Half Ironman and the Portland Marathon. (I'd also love to do a century ride, but I think I'll leave that one for 2010.)

Once I've committed to the goals, I find that it helps me focus on the training task at hand: whether it be getting in those base miles, increasing distance, or focusing on pace or speed. This focus definitely has paid off so far: the base miles have helped me drop 8-9 of the pounds I regained after the 2007 Portland Marathon, I've dropped my training pace from 9:20ish to 8:30-8:40ish, and by January I had enough base in place that I was able to commit to the Eugene marathon this May. And that feeds the cycle of increasing my focus, so now despite a busy week, I still find/make time to sneak in the shorter mid-week runs.

It does still get pretty tough staying motivated during a 60 hour workweek, though. That's where some advanced planning comes in. My wife is great at this, and I've tried to learn from her: at the beginning of the week, figure out what the week looks like and build a plan that fits with it. If I know that there's no way I'll be able to run on Tuesday, make sure I find the time Monday and Wednesday. If I know that the only time I'd have to run Wednesday is early morning or noon, either make sure I get to bed early on Tuesday or make sure I block out time for the noon run on my calendar. Then it's not so much a matter of motivation and having to figure out what to do, but just doing what has already been planned out.

The concepts of planning and goal-setting are equally relevant in my career and my running. At work, we learn to challenge ourselves (stretch goals) while at the same time making sure what we're planning are SMART goals: specific (what exactly is it that I want to accomplish), measureable (how will I determine whether it is done or not), achieveable (a stretch goal is fine as long as it's realistic), relevant (how does it fit in with my overall objectives) and time-bound (by when do I want to accomplish it). After I've defined a goal, I then put together a project plan to accomplish it. Setting a goal for a specific race, whether it be to just finish or accomplish a specific time, and then defining the training plan, is the fitness equivalent.

Of course, the other thing that helps with motivation is to have an accountability partner. I normally run by myself, so I don't have the benefit of someone waiting on me to start their run. But fortunately, my wife is a great encourager - if I look like I'm not having enough motivation to get out and run on a planned day, she'll say the right things that make it easier to get out and run or even just give me the simple reminder that I have a specific objective coming up. She also helps me stick to my diet a lot better than I would on my own, but that's another story. :)

Planning, goal-setting and accountability partners are the things that help me keep my motivation during the busy times... what are the things that help you out?

Training Update 4/22/09

2009-04-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

First of all, today is a great day... my 3rd wedding anniversary. Thank you to my wonderful wife Christine for 3 great years with many more to come!

Now an update on training. As I planned, I took a rest day on Sunday with a 12-14 miler planned for Monday. Monday morning I woke up at 5:30, ate my usual pre-run breakfast, and headed out the door at 6:30 am planning to run a half-marathon at my planned marathon pace (9:45). The run started off poorly... my headphones pretty much died a half-mile into the run. After getting over that, I cruised through the first mile in 9:15. What??? I told myself to slow down and completed my second mile in... 9:15. Third mile? 9:15. Fourth mile? 9:17.

Well, at this point, I decided that rather than try to reproduce race pace, I would just go ahead and run my 13+ miles at a "comfortable pace". That turned out to be 9:15-9:20 until I hit ~2 miles left, and I picked up the pace - I could hear faint bass lines from some of songs on my iPod, and a particularly catchy KT Tunstall tune came up. :) Not sure what I was running, but I was pretty energized - it was a beautiful day, I was feeling good, and I was in the groove. It was probably a 8:45ish pace, because my overall pace for 13.5 miles ended up being 9:11!

Not only was it a great run, but for whatever strange reason, I didn't feel the usual "post-run, can't walk down the stairs, my legs are so stiff" feeling either Monday or Tuesday. I did take Tuesday off, as I do after all my long runs, and I decided to take today off... still fighting general fatigue (need more hours in the day for sleep!) and woke up with sore feet (the wonders of being almost flat-footed).

I'm not sure whether Monday's great run was a sign that my training is all coming together or not, but I'm planning on keeping up my regular schedule of two days on, one day off for the next week: shooting for 3-5 mile runs on Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday, then probably a couple of days rest, an easy Thursday run, a couple of days rest and then Eugene. Hopefully I'll find some other things to get me some "exercise" (yard work, long walks) during those last few days, but the way my training has been going, that seems like the best taper for me.

Moral of the story: I'm definitely signing up for a pace group at Eugene, because I proved to myself I can't gauge pace very well right now. The 4:15 group is a 9:44-9:45 pace, so I think I'll go with that one...

Training update 4/17/09

2009-04-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

Just a quick training update... some of you know that I'm training for the Eugene marathon, which is on May 3rd. Right now I'm in the final part of my training, so whatever major strengthening or damage has already been done. Now it's a matter of keeping my base, working on my pace, and staying injury-free for another 16 days.

That being said, this was a good week: 5 miles last Saturday followed up by 4 miles on Easter, all at a decent ~8:35 pace. My base miles are getting faster, which I think is a good sign - as long as I don't overdo it.

Then a rest day on Monday, followed by a business trip to Wisconsin on Tuesday. Despite getting up at a very unreasonable 3:15 PDT, I managed to get to my hotel around 6:30 CDT and get in a run before it got too dark and the bugs got too thick. Another 4+ miles at a reasonable 8:43 (which up until a couple of weeks ago, was a typical "fast" training pace for 3-5 milers). And on Wednesday, I got in another late afternoon 5k at an 8:46 pace... but was definitely starting to feel sluggish, both from traveling as well as the hills around the hotel.

Thursday was a rest day, and it turns out today was a rest day as well - we drove to the coast to spend a weekend with the in-laws. So the plan is to get in a run tomorrow, rest Sunday and on Monday morning get in my last "long" run (shooting for 12-14 making sure I don't run any faster than planned race pace) before the marathon. Oh, and work a full day on Monday, too. :)

An introduction

2009-04-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Thanks for checking into my blog... this is a grand experiment for me, and it will definitely be interesting to see how it evolves.

So what's the point of this blog? Well, first the title gives a hint at what the content is: the intersection of being an engineer and being an athlete. But I suspect it will be more than that - after all, life IS about more than work and running. First and foremost, I'm a husband and a father. My wife and I are coming up on our third anniversary, and we have two wonderful daughters (step-daughters in my case), 12 and 10 years old. And I have a crazy albeit wonderful family spread across the western US: a grandmother, mom and sister in Colorado, cousins in Colorado and Idaho, and a ton of in-laws just a few miles from home in Oregon (as well as a sister-in-law in New York and cousin-in-laws in various places). Since they're such a big part of my life, I'm sure you'll see them crop up occasionally as this blog progresses.

But why the focus on work and running? For those of you who are salaried, you know the challenge of balancing a job - which is almost never just 40 hours a week - with any sort of hobby, especially if it's endurance sports. And I am branching out (again) into endurance sports and not just running. I first started running around age 10 when I was introduced to the sport by my uncle, who at the time was a 5k & 10k runner, before his transition to marathons. And when he started spending more time cycling, I took up that sport as well... and by age 13 or 14, I had completed a metric century on the bike, a sprint triathlon and a number of 2 mile, 5k and 4 mile fun runs. In high school, I hung up the shoes in favor of swimming; but in college, a girlfriend encouraged me to lose some of the swimming "streamlining" and take up running again. At age 21, I completed my first half-marathon. But the transition from college to grad school took its toll, and I started running less (and the discovery of beer meant I started weighing more!). By the time I finished grad school, I was down to 3-6 miles a week, which eventually turned into 3-6 miles a month after I started working in the "real world" (think 50+ hours a week of grey cubicles and business trips). But marrying a wonderful woman who encourages and inspires me to stay healthy has allowed me to reintroduce running to my life. In 2006, I completed my "first" (since college) 10k, and in 2007, I completed by first (ever) marathon, the 2007 Portland Marathon. And this year, I have a couple of marathons and a half-Ironman circled on the calendar.

As you can see, the intersection of life and running has had both positive and negative moments. People have always been on the positive side: an amazing uncle who introduced me to the sport (and an amazing aunt who continues to inspire me) as well as a wonderful wife who gently encourages me to take better care of my health. But the rigors of school and career have often shown a negative impact on my exercise efforts: whether it be the "lack of time" to work out, lack of motivation after a long day (or week or month) or business travel where people insist on wining and dining every night. But as we all know, nothing puts the stress of life behind you like a good run or ride or swim - being an athlete and a professional should have positives, not just challenges.

This blog will attempt to capture some of the highs and lows as I experience them or reflect on times past. Hopefully some of it will inspire, perhaps some of it will allow you to commiserate. Some of it will probably invoke laughter at me (afterall, I'm an engineer attempting to write!), but maybe some of the laughter will be with me. I'll try to post something "significant" once a week: I've already got a list of topics I want to cover (like the challenges of training while traveling, whether it's better to use and iPod while running, or about my personal battles with pizza, burritos, Cadbury eggs and DQ Blizzards), but if you have an idea for a topic, I'm always open to suggestions. I'll also post the occasional training update - which might not be too inspiring, but maybe you can provide some encouragement, training suggestions or good-natured heckling.

So.... welcome aboard to this grand journey. Let's see how it goes when we start talking about Running and the Cube.