Broken Trainer

Today I broke my indoor cycling trainer. It's not a huge deal, more of an inconvenience than anything else. I've already done the research, and it's an $8 fix direct from Cycleops. The reason for the break down is because of a fault in the design for being able to use 650c wheels. With the smaller wheel, I need to move the entire fly wheel unit in closer so it makes contact. This isn't a huge deal, except that there is a plastic section on the underside of the flywheel that makes the contact needed for the 650c wheel difficult at best. I always wondered why I really had to wrench down on the turn handle to get a decent amount of contact on my tire. So with the travel being restricted, I ended up stripping out the L shaped bolt that holds the fly wheel in place for the ride.

The funny thing is that I don't normally use my trainer. I've been doing lots of rides at work and have been on the station trainer, which is a Kurt Kinetic fluid trainer. So while I am now unable to do any training at home, it will soon be back up and running. This is only a little frustrating because, yet again, I get screwed by having the smaller 650c wheels. These wheels truly are the bane of my existence.

I did some number crunching for this last month, and I have decided that I will start to total my monthly miles and share them with you. So for the month of Sept, here's the final miles
Swim:  2200 yds (remember, I'm working on form, not volume right now)
Bike: 146.4 miles (It was actually more, but somehow I lost the mileage on one of my training rides)
Run: 18.6 miles
This is also on top of the Crossfit that I do as well.

My last few workouts, I've really been paying attention to my heart rate while on the bike and now while on the run since I got my Timex GPS. It's some interesting stuff. While reading the Time Crunched Cyclist book, I've learned more about heart rate and zones, and how they can be used for different types of training. So I'm starting to pay more attention to where the ol' ticker is at while I'm doing the work.

Lastly, I thought that I'd leave you with a music video of a song that I can't get out of my head. It's from a band called Dead Sara, and I'm pretty sure that I've posted another video from them for a song called the Weatherman. This song is called We Are What You Say

REI Garage Sale and my OCD

                         Saturday it was go time for the REI garage sale. I usually only get to one of these a year and it's probably a god thing that I don't go more often. I always have a list of what it is that I'm going to look for, but inevitably, there is always a find or two that I can't pass up. This year was no exception. The sale starts at 9am in the parking lot. I got there just before 830, and had plenty of time to wonder around the outside of the sale area (they have it blocked off with the orange snow fencing) to see what was potentially available. First thing I noticed was a pink bike. This is one of the balance bikes that has become popular for the kids. It's basically a bike without the crank and pedals. It allows the younger kids to push themselves on the bike and learn how to balance. Then when it's time for a "real" bike, the transition is super smooth and no training wheels are required. How can I NOT go for that bike? The little girl will be turning 2 in another month, plus Christmas is right around the corner. I NEEDED THAT BIKE! I also saw a Kurt Kinetic fluid trainer and a Cylceops wind trainer. I already have a trainer, and I get a killer deal on the Kinetic fluid trainers anyways, so they were further down the list. My new list was the bike, and then a Garmin GPS watch.
                           REI's method for letting people in is designed to prevent people from camping out the night before. It used to be a first come, first serve, so people would camp out the day before to score the best deals. Now, it's a lottery system based on your member ID number. They tell you to look at either the last or second to last digit, and then they start drawing numbers from a hat. The luckier you are, the sooner you're called. Last time, I was in the first round thanks to my buddy Jeff who had the right number. Each person can bring one friend in. The way to play the game, and maximize your chances though is to get the member cards of friends that can't make it, and therefore increase you're chances of getting in early. I had 2 other cards with me besides my own.
                           The first number was called and it wasn't mine! BUT, it did belong to my friend Randy. Randy grabbed Jeff and started toward the door. I told Jeff to grab the pink bike and he looked at me like "are you serious?" Yeah, grab the bike! Off they went in, and Randy grabbed the bike as he went to look for other stuff. One of my 3 numbers was called next, so off Shawna and I went to go shopping. I saw Randy walking around with the pink bike and thought that he looked so cute I shouldn't take the bike from him so soon. But then he saw me, and handed over the bike. The bike was VERY popular, as Shawna and I had multiple people come up to us and ask if we were going to buy it. One lady even followed Shawna around for 10 min just in case.

                        With the bike in hand, it was time to get back on track with what was really on the list, and that was a Garmin. Searching through the bin, there was a ton of electronic stuff, mostly just heart rate monitors, and other cycling computers. I thought that I just might not luck out, but then Shawna pointed out another table. At that table, I found a Timex GPS run trainer watch with a heart rate monitor. Later in the morning, Shawna pointed out a Motorola GPS watch that had an 8Gb MP3 player built in. I thought that was pretty cool, and now I needed to make a decision. I almost went with the Motorola until I realized that I was going to have to pay extra for the heart rate feature on the unit. A heart rate monitor was way more important to me than the MP3 player. After all, I already have a music player. So I went with the Timex one. The only small problem is that it has some pink on it. A small pink ring around the face, and then the buttons are also this pink/purple color. Seeing how I was getting this for more than 1/2 off, I could really care less that it has a little bit of pink. The reason for the return, according to the label was than it was bought new, but looked used. The previous owner also returned it a week earlier, so I'm thinking that they returned it in hopes of re-buying it for cheaper. All in all, it was a fairly successful trip to REI.

                      Later that night, I had a bought of OCD strike. Now I think that everyone has some sort of OCD, it's just a matter of how it wants to manifest itself. For me, my normal OCD is every night I need to go down stairs and make sure that every door is locked. Open the garage door, ensure that it's closed, then lock the door from the garage to the kitchen. Check the back, slider door. Check the front door. This includes making sure that all the child locks are locked on each of those doors as well. Well Saturday night my OCD got the best of me. I had to move the fridge to retrieve a picture of my Grandfather and I (it's the last picture that was taken of the two of us before he died)  and when I did that, I noticed that the back of the fridge was dusty. Holy crap was it ever dusty and linty. I then spent the next 30+ minutes dusting and cleaning the back of the fridge. It was only midnight by the time I got done. I wasn't expecting to do that, but once I saw the all the lint I couldn't leave it alone. There was no way I could leave it alone. But now, it's all clean, and I have my picture back so everything is as it should be.

Fall is in the air

                 It's the end of September and fall is in the air. The days are still warm (low 80's high 70's), but the nights are getting chilly, running into the 40's. This means that the early morning runs are getting colder. I haven't had to bust out the long sleeve Zoot top yet, but I've had to switch to my Adidas running pants and a base layer shirt under a t-shirt. The other morning it was maybe low 50's when I got out on the run. A little chilly to start the 10k, but I quickly warmed up. Then during the run, it started to rain and cooled me off. Not a down pour, but just a light rain. I wouldn't have even noticed it if it wasn't for the smell of wet asphalt or the occasional puddle that showed the rain drops.
                   But with the season starting to change, the colors are also starting to turn to fall. Leaves haven't really started to fall yet, but the colors are starting to change and it's beautiful. It's funny the things that you notice while you're running. I didn't notice that the trees were starting to change colors before the run, but when I'm not zipping past those trees at 35+ while behind the wheel you start to notice the little things like that. It's the same way on the bike too. I've noticed different smells while being outside. The smell of the mint fields or onion fields as I ride past. The smell of the cows, or of the freshly cut hay. The smells that you don't normally notice while in the car. You also notice temperature and humidity changes as well. You don't realize how much cooler the air can be in the shade until you are roasting in the sun and hit a shady spot to go through. The humidity of a freshly watered corn field totally through me for a loop the first time I rode through it. All of a sudden, the humidity hit me like a while. I've experienced humidity while running when someone has their sprinkler's on, but the corn field was another thickness all together.
                   With the fall, the days are getting shorter, and that means that I'll have less and less of a chance to get out and ride. Even if I can get a ride or run in outside, the smells will be gone while old man winter comes resting his big cold butt over my corner of the world.

                     I've continued to get at least one, if not 2 swims in a week. I'm still just working on keeping good form, and building the muscle memory to allow it to be natural for me. It's frustrating at times, because I want to just dive in and do a 500 or 800 and call it good. But I know that doing that won't be beneficial for me at this time. I need to be patient and continue on my 50yd repeats and occasional 100yds. Instead of focusing on the long stuff, I need to worry about the right stuff. Swimming is such a technical sport where form is crucial and speed comes from strength and form. I have a friend who was a collegiate swimmer and former SEAL. He describes the proper swim form as the sensation of swimming down hill. I didn't know what he was talking about until the other day. The other day something clicked for just a couple of the repeats and I felt like I was swimming down hill. I felt effortless and speedy. Like I said, it only happened for a couple of the repeats, but it was awesome! Now I'm trying to get that feeling back. This morning in the pool there was a guy in the next lane over who looked painful. You could tell that he was working very hard, but not moving very fast. His hips were dragging below the water with his legs sinking down, he had very little rotation and pulled his head up to breath, with his arms constantly crossing over the midline. I didn't get a chance to talk to him much, but all I know is that he was swimming just for health and not for competition. He left before I could even offer some friendly advice.
                   All my cycling lately has been on the trainer, and all of that trainer time is at work. I've still been doing lots of Spinervals videos just to keep me entertained and doing something creative instead of the steady state rides for an hour. I've been averaging 3 rides a week with 2 of them just cardio/base rides, and the other a strength ride. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of having my bike, and while I haven't checked the numbers yet, I'm pretty sure I've logged over 1500miles in this first year. Not too bad I don't think for my first year of actual cycling. But that's nothing compared to my Capt who will have logged 6000miles before the end of November. I'm still reading the Time Crunched Cyclist book. I'm now at the chapter that actually talks about the programming and what it entails, but I think that I'll give it a go in January (maybe) and use that as my base for the cycling training.
Running is still about a twice a week occurrence for me right now. I'm trying to get a long run (10k) and some intervals done each week. Nothing too hard or pushing the limits right now, but enough to keep the blood flowing and the muscles reminded of what to do. I'm also trying to keep the strength and conditioning up, but there are good days and bad days of getting that accomplished. Ideally, I'd like to get 3 of the S&C days a week in, but that's pushing it I know.
                  Tomorrow is the REI garage sale, and I'm hoping to score some good stuff. Last year when I went, I got my Cycleops trainer for $52 and the Yakima luggage pod for $150. I hope to get some other great deals, but at the same time we don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on the deals. The big thing that I'm hoping to score is a Garmin GPS. I've been using my buddy Gabe's and it's worked ok, but I'd like to get one of my own and give his back to him. Ideally, I've I could score a Garmin 310, then I'd be stoked! It's a mutlisport GPS that can read a heart rate monitor and a cadence sensor for use on the bike

Back to training

               It's been a month since my last triathlon and it's time to get back into some sort of training routine. I haven't been lazy and not worked out at all, but I have been un-structured and just doing whatever. Last week I went for the group ride with some guys from work and it was awesome. We had 9 guys total join the ride. Everything from super serious guys like my captain, to guys just getting into riding. Guys on $4k bikes, and one guy on an old steel Schwinn bike. Just riding with the guys was great. We went on the loop known as Cartright loop and it's almost a 20mi loop with 3 good hills to climb. The first hill was long, but not terribly steep. It forced me into my small chain ring and large cog (25) but I was able to keep my cadence over 80 for the entire hill. So while I was winded at the end, it wasn't terrible. The last two hills though, were brutal! Very steep and a huge nut buster. I knew that we had the one hill, but was completely unprepared for the second hill. Both had inclines greater than 12%, and rocked me. I struggled in the same gearing as the earlier hill, having to get out of my saddle and mash the gears. I never looked at my cadence sensor through the misery, but I'd guess that I was in the 60's maybe. Maybe. After the ride we stopped for lunch and beers and hung out for a little bit before going our separate ways.

           The following day I got up early and did a 10k. I took the Garmin with me just to monitor my pace, but wasn't going to push it. I was mostly out on the road just enjoying myself and trying to not get hit by any cars that were making there way to work. I took a different route than I normally do, and must say that the new route wasn't very pleasant. No real shoulder to run on, and the spots that had the shoulder were up against some farm land and there were decent size rocks that I had to watch out for. My pace was decent, with my only goal was to stay below an 8min/mile. I kept a 7:40 pace for the first 4 miles, and then I hit my stride and busted out 7:05 miles for the last 2 miles. I got into a groove, and it didn't even feel like I was working any harder to get that speed. It was a beautiful morning, and I made sure that I wave a hi and thank you to those drivers who were paying attention and moved over for me.

               I finally got back into the water too. I say finally because I was missing the swim, although I wasn't missing the early mornings needed to get the swims in before work. My swimming now is consisting of pure form work. I'm not worrying about speed, only my form. Keeping a good high elbow catch and pull through the water is all I'm concerned about right now. I am starting with a kick board drill designed to encourage that kind of pull. After a few laps with the board I then move onto swimming at an easy pace with the focus being the stroke portion. Again, not worrying about my speed, or about my total distance in the pool. Next month I plan on buying a swim halo and that will further encourage the high elbow catch and pull and help build and reinforce the muscle memory that I will need to continue the good form through the water. I did end up timing my only 100yd swim at the end of my first form session just to get an idea of where I was speed wise. I did the 100yd at roughly the same easy pace that I was feeling throughout the morning. Nothing hard, just a steady pace that was moving through the water with my form being the most important part. If I had to guess my pace, I'd of guessed that I finished in the mid 1:50's range, that's how slow I felt and how little effort I thought that I was really putting out. Instead my watch revealed a much different story. To my surprise, I finished at a 1:31. This, I felt was huge. My cruising 100yd earlier this year, before the Boise Ironman was a 1:43, and here I did a 1:31 and it felt slower. I'm very encouraged about how it went. Here's a video of the kick board drill that I was talking about. The drill starts at the 3:05 mark and then the coach talks and shows the high elbow catch and pull that I'm trying to describe.

                Lastly, I was given a cycling book to read by my Capt, GT. It's called the Time Crunched Cyclist, and it's written by Lance Armstrong's cycling coach, Chris Carmichael. So far it's pretty good, and I think that I'm going to use it as the base of my cycling training leading up to the season next year. I've already started to spit ball my training, but this program will consist of 6hrs/week on the bike in high intensity intervals designed to build strength and power for rides up to 3hrs. A 56 mile bike for a half Iron should by right at that 3hr mark or less depending on how good my speed is. If I decide to go with this as my cycling program, I will then program my running around it, and try to keep the running <25% of the cycling volume (that 25% seems fairly standard for endurance training). The swim will be probably 2x week, with a third day on the swim halo. Then there will be 3x week of Crossfit with the emphasis being on strength and conditioning. That's the basis of where I'm at in the planning stages for next years training. But for now, I'm just trying to have some fun and work on some of the basics while I have the time.

11 years later

11 years ago the twin towers fell. I can still remember where I was that day. I woke up to my step-mom yelling at me to wake up from sleeping in the loft of their house. I stumbled down stairs and saw the towers fall. I grabbed my pager from work, and sure enough, there was a ton of pages asking everyone to come in and man the ambulances just in case. I decided not to go into work that day. I lived in the Los Angeles area and worked in San Bernardino county. My thinking was that if anything else was going to happen, it'd be in the city and not out where I worked. I had friends in LA City fire and Burbank fire, and thought that I could probably jump on with one of them if it really got bad.
11 years later and we are still remembering. I will continue to remember. My helmet has a sticker on the back that has the Fighting 343 for the 343 FDNY firefighters that were killed that day. We must not forget the fact that we still have troops on the ground fighting and dying to help prevent another Sept 11th. So long as there are those that are "down range" we must never forget them. We can not forget the sacrifices that their brother's in arms have made either. Thank you to those who have fought, and continue to fight for our freedom. Freedom is never free, and we will never forget you!

Happy birthday buddy

Happy Birthday! Not to me, but to my oldest boy, the one that I refer to as boy #1. The big man turned 6 yesterday and had a pretty good day. It was a day filled with a mini-mm's covered doughnut for breakfast. Happy meal lunch, and his dinner of choice, BBQ hot dogs and brats. Normally I would never feed him that much crap in one day, but it was his birthday and I let him get after it and enjoy it. The only thing he didn't have a choice in was going to church. After church we hit up McDonald's for him, boy #2 and their friend who was along for the birthday ride. After lunch was the family fun center where they played in the indoor climber, video games and then some mini-golf, followed by more climbing before heading home. Family came over for cake and ice cream after dinner and we had a nice night. Obviously no training was done yesterday, and I was totally fine with that. I'll update you more on the training in another post, but I wanted this one to be just all about him. Happy birthday buddy, mommy and daddy love you soo much!!!

End of season numero uno

                       With the Emmett triathlon over, my season seems to be pretty much behind me now. I had a blast doing the triathlons, and am already looking forward to the next season. So the question then begs, what will next season look like for me? To start off, I don't have a clue. Most races haven't posted anything for what the next year will possibly look like, and probably won't until closer to January. That is, off course unless you consider Ironman events, which open almost a full year out and fill up shortly there after. I do have a few things on the agenda of what I'd like to see happen next year, so I guess I can start there. I'd like to do the Spudman and Emmett Triathlons again next year. Spudman is 2+ hours away, but the venue was fairly family friendly so the kids would enjoy the time out there. Emmett is close, and was a fairly well organized race. Plus with the kids tri that they put on the day before, I know that the boys will want to do that one too! If the Boise 70.3 Ironman comes back to town, I'd really like to do that one again and hope that next year has better weather and we can actually get the full 70.3 distance done. As of right now, there is no word on it coming back to town. This year was the last year of the initial 5 year contract, so hopefully it will come back. I also hope to do the Rev 3 olympic distance race in Portland. They had one this year, and I'm hoping that they will have another one for 2013. I am choosing Portland because we have friends that live in the area, and anytime you can possibly save money on the travel fees with staying at someone's house, then it makes it more enticing. My focus for next year will be more of the olympic distance, with a goal of crushing 2:30 for any of the events. I was soo close to doing that in Emmett, and know that it's obtainable on a flat course like that for me next year.

Training for this next season is going to be structured around the Crossfit Endurance model, but probably not following their site. I might follow the Crossfit main site for some of the workouts, but I think that with what my goals are for improving, I'd be better served doing my own programming. The main emphasis is going to be on the bike, and then the swim. My running is what I already consider my strength, and will take a back seat to the other two disciplines. I will still run, but I will probably only have one key run session a week, with the rest of the time being filled by the bike and swim. The interesting thing about training for the next season is how to get it all done. Starting in October, work is changing schedules. No longer will I be doing a 24hr shift, with a day off in between for 3 shifts before I get 4 days off. Now, I will be doing a 48hr shift, and then getting 4 days off. This will be different in soo many different ways, I can't even imagine or describe all of them.

                    In the triathlon training world, it means less water time. Why? because I would usually hit the pool on my way to work 2x week. But now with the schedule change, my water time doesn't have to be reduced, but it'll be harder to hit the water all the time because of family commitments. My plan? My plan is to buy the swim halo training system. I'll get a full review once I've bought the system and had a chance to try it out. It's basically an indoor training device for swimming that helps to build strength, endurance, pacing and most importantly muscle memory on what a good high elbow catch is for the water. My intention is to use that while at work and at home to get some muscle memory of a good catch and pull phase of my stroke, something that I know I'm lacking in. Hopefully this will then translate into faster swim times in the water.

                For the bike portion, I'm super fortunate to have a very serious cyclist as my captain. One who likes to race as well. I've already talked with him about his thoughts on my ability to build speed over this off season, and we will have a plan in place to get it done. The nice thing, is that we will be doing the same basic speed building plan together, getting ready for the next season. So I will have an experienced athlete/coach to not only hold me accountable to getting faster, but to push me harder. Right now, it seems that my average speed is around 19 for most of my rides. The Emmett tri I pushed out over 20, but it was mostly a flat course, vs the rolling hills that I normally ride. On the bike, I really want to have a solid 20+ mph average, and the closer I can get to 21mph for the course of 56 miles the better. The ultimate goal is to do a full Ironman distance, and that is 112 miles. But the Ironman dream is still a few years down the road. For now, I want to build some more speed and endurance at the olympic distance and dabble in the 70.3 world. I know that it's early to say still being so new to the sport, but I think that 2013 will be mostly the olympic distance, and then 2014 will start to have more 70.3's. I will continue to do the Boise 70.3 since it is a local race and I have no excuse not to do it.

                Running will, like I said, take more of a back seat. I will try to get at minimum, one key run session a week of a long distance (10k+) and then a second run session of longer distance intervals, 1/2mile - 1 mile intervals. The goals for the run is to push my times lower. The goal is to push myself into the sub 7 min/miles (6:45-6:50) for the 10k, and then extend that into a full 13.1 mile (21k). This should be obtainable with the fact that I can push and do pretty close to a 7min/miles now for a 10k. The biggest issue is just to stay focused during the run and not slack off. Embrace the pain and discomfort as it comes, and push through it. I had my quarterly fitness evaluation 2 days ago, and I crushed the run! It's a mile and a half, and I've had maybe two run sessions since Emmett, but nothing super serious. On Tuesday, I got a new PR for the run at 8:23. My previous PR was 8:28, and that was a couple of years ago. Over the last year, I've had an 8:30-something, and a couple of 8:40's. Tuesday had me do a mile in ~5:25. Granted, I can't keep that pace for a 5k, but it shows that I have the ability to be fast, and now I just need to translate that into fast over an extended distance.

         The rest of my training as of late, has been lifting and some Crossfit stuff. Getting back to my roots, as I'd like to say. I haven't done any swimming since Emmett. It's not that I don't want to swim, in fact I actually miss it a little bit. But the big thing is that I just don't feel like getting up at 5am to hit the pool before work. I've been enjoying the extra hour of sleep in the am. Now, If I could only get to bed earlier, that would be even better! I've done a few rides on the bike, and interval based one, and then an outside ride, but I've been enjoying just getting out on the road and not worrying about my speed. Next week, a bunch of us from work are going to get together for a ride, and I'm super stoked about that ride.