The King's appendage

While the cycling world is anxiously awaiting the verdict of tomorrow's Hell of the North, aka the Queen of the Classics, or -for those romantically inclined- Paris Roubaix, stateside, marathon fever is about to grip endurance racers with the upcoming 115th running of the Boston marathon. And so it is, when events of this magnitude are within reach, that historians go delving into the archives and cubbyholes to find tidbits of ancient lore that add luster and shine to these affairs.

The goal on Boylston Street

Roubaix velodrome

The marathoners love to go as far back as Ancient Greece, when a runner named Pheidippides or Philippides ran from the enclave of Marathon, where an epic battle had just taken place, to Athens, to tell the good citizens of that town that the Greeks had won. The runner, whomever he was, or whatever his name was, ran the entire distance, which, depending on how he choose to go, measured between 35 and 40 kilometers without stopping. Then as he reached the wise Athenians, and uttered his victorious Νενικήκαμεν, he collapsed and died. Hollywood could not have done better especially since the entire affair is more likely than not hearsay.

Contrary to popular belief the marathon was not a sporting event in Ancient Greece or at the Greek Olympics. The Greeks knew better than to run that distance in competition. Without helicopters, roving TV cameras, and constant internet updates it would have been boring as hell to watch.

The marathon is a modern invention, and like Paris Roubaix, it was invented by a Frenchman who was eager to find an event suitable for his newly proposed Olympic Games of the Modern Era. Nobody was really sure what distance to use, but 40 km seemed like a nice round and metric number with some historical justification.

When the marathon moved to London for the 1908 Olympics, the English thought it would be nice to add a little extra so the King could watch the start of the event from his palace balcony. And so it was that 2.195 kilometers was added to the race. The official distance then became 42,195 meters or 26 miles and 385 yrds (close enough to print bumper stickers that read 26.2).

But perhaps the Kings add-on would not have prevailed had it not been for the type of finish that later put Ironman on the map. In that famed 1908 Games, Italian Dorando Pietri entered the finishing lap at the Roubaix velodrome stadium, struggling to make it to the line. He was helped by officials who propped him up and carried him in, as American Johnny Hayes was bearing down on him. Pietri was later disqualified but the Queen was so taken by this incident that she gave Pietri a gold cup the next day. This made-for-TV moment, that preceded Julie Moss's eerily similar Hawaiian crawl in February of 1982, started a worldwide marathon fever. Julie had to settle for David Letterman as America has no queen.

The Hawaiian crawl

I am sure you will all be keeping your fingers crossed and hope that trains will run on time in Northern France.

Paris-Roubaix train incident

I also hope you will be rooting for Tommeke. Hopefully he won't have to crawl over the line to hold off the Swiss superman (of Italian descent) Cancellara.

Third wave and cobblestones

Following the Women's Movement and Holy Spirit innovators, the Boston Marathon is now also adding its own Third Wave. The Third Wave or Wave 3 as it is know over there in New England, will leave the town of Hopkinton at 10:40 AM and wear blue bib numbers that read 18,000 or higher.

All of this is part of the rather sudden explosive growth in popularity of America's Oldest Marathon. The Boston marathon now sells out almost as quickly as an Ironman.

Gratuitous bragging

The 2012 registration procedures have changed to reflect that reality, giving registration time bonuses to runners who best the required entry times by 5, 10 or 20 minutes, in what is known as a "rolling admission." For 2013, organizers just decided to cut 5 minutes of the qualifying times that were standard up until now. That should convince naysayers who believe that "Americans are out of shape and the situation is getting worse every year."

I for one will not attend this year's event, although I am happy to boast that in previous editions (forgetting the 2010 Boston disaster) I was able to best my qualifying time by more than 20 minutes and would thus have qualified for the bonus. The reason I am not attending is that I feel quite good having run three-in-a-row and I will save myself the airfare and the environment the CO2 of going there.

More bragging...

In Europe meanwhile everyone is getting ready for the infamous cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. World champion Tor Husovd, who would like to win the event wearing a rainbow jersey, said doing so would be as simple as following Alberto Contador up Alpe d'Huez.

Peter van Petegem, the veteran winner of the event and a special adviser to Garmin thinks "it is all in the head." Echoing a line we have heard many times from Ironman swimmers, Van Petegem thinks that to win Paris-Roubaix, you have to fall in love with the cobbles (Ed. ironman swimmers of course need to fall in love with the water).

So far though, Peter's efforts and Garmin's results have not impressed anyone. Far from it, the Belgian press has been raking Garmin and its well-known adviser over the coals for their non-presence in the Ronde and other early season races. The dream team has so far disappointed everyone who follows these matters.

A quick note: race results

When you run a marathon in the US, your family and friends can get race updates while you run, in real time. Every time I ran Boston, my wife would get an update when I passed a 10K marker, and after the race I would grab my cellphone out of my bag and check my result, accurate to the second.

Not so in bike racing though. Not only do you have to travel miles into nowhere land, and rise at some ungodly hour to race in front of a stack of windmills, or -if you are lucky- a herd of cows, but you won't see results until hours later. And most likely these results will be wrong to boot. Your friends and relatives on the other hand will have to wait several days for those results to appear on the web. And that in the land of Google!

NCNCA has only recently discovered the race chip and even with that chip, it still took several days before the results of the first race, the Snelling road race were posted. Since I did not go there I don't know how accurate these results were, but if history is any indication, then don't hold your breath.

When you race in Belgium however, your friends and family will get accurate results within hours. Because of the time difference, these people will often find results as soon as they wake up on the very day you raced. You will get results within 15 minutes. Unlike cows, people do not like to wait around for podiums!

To find results for your loved ones who race in Belgium, go to wielerbond vlaanderen  and look at the bottom right under "Wedstrijdkalender en Resultaten." Find the city where the race was held and look for a star icon. As soon as results are official they will appear there. You click the star and voila, accurate, up to date results.

To find out about categories and the race calendar, check this out.

And finally, a few pictures of Annelise climbing a 50ft indoor wall.

Annelise taking on the 10a/b

 Here is another one:

Boston disaster

I guess you can say the answer is in. Doing a fair number of medium distance (12-16 mile) runs is not as good as doing fewer, shorter (8-10 mile) runs combined with some serious 20 minute tempo runs and intervals. For some odd reason, I expected this all along and expressed my concern on this blog prior to going into Boston. It had just dawned on me that, although I had run a lot, I had done very little intensity-wise this year.

Blame the weather and fact that I had no treadmill.

The fundraising too was a disaster. It started out well with some great early donations. But then everyone let me down and I was unable to gain traction. Unlike last year, most people did not even bother to reply or come up with some (lousy) excuse. They simply ignored my pleas. I find it hard to believe that the economic hardship is that great.

In short, the marathon was a disaster. It started out somewhat ominously when I woke up a week before with back pain. The back pain eventually went away and it did not play a major role in what happened, other than darken my mood a bit. Then there was the weather. Although Boston had seen nice weather all week, the day I arrived it got cold and started raining. No fun.

Miraculously it all went away on Monday and the day was near perfect for a marathon. It was nice, not too hot, and sunny. Blue skies at last. Perhaps the only problem was a chilly breeze although some might argue it was a tailwind for much of the distance.

I took it easy in the days leading up to the race and I felt pretty good going into it. I ran easily and the first 12 miles were fine. Maybe I started out a bit too fast but it didn't feel that way and I wasn't overly excited or pumped up with coffee. I actually drank very little coffee that day.

But in Natick things started to fall apart. First I slowed down, not because I was breathing hard, but because my legs failed me. I had some trouble leaving the town and heading up the small hill to Wellesley College. Then I suffered some more on the downhill into town, where Andrew and Andreas were ready to cheer me on. Once I headed into the second half things only got worse. By mile 16 I started suffering from cramps in my calf muscles and an upset stomach. I was forced to take a potty break. That is never a good sign. However, I still felt I could salvage a 3:25 or close to that.

On Commonwealth, even before heartbreak hill I had to start walking because of the cramps. By the time I hit the top it was really bad. Not even the downhill offered any respite, and those final 9 miles of downhill and flats were hell. The cramps got worse and the jogging -I wasn't running any more- stretches shorter and shorter as I was forced to walk more distance and more often. I was still hoping for a 3:30 or maybe a 3:35.

The last 2.2 km (1.4 mi) were especially painful and it took almost 15 minutes for me to finish. I walked large stretches of Boylston with the finish line in full view. Not even the near-hysterical Boston crowds could alleviate my misery. By the time it was all over, I had used up nearly 3:42 and I continued to suffer cramps, which would last for hours afterwards.

Fortunately, Andreas had decided to come into the city and pick me up. Although I had trouble getting into the car, I felt quite relieved. As expected the delayed-onset muscle soreness also came with a vengeance. Today I woke up sore and stiff and I have trouble walking stairs. Perhaps the best part was that the flight home was rather pleasant and uneventful.

The good news for the weekend is that Alistair won the Sea Otter Road race for the second year in a row, and he did so in a very dramatic solo breakaway, which vindicated my status as his coach.

TeamCindy in the news

A story about TeamCindy at the Boston Marathon in the Examiner.

Run baby, run

One reason for training in a group is that it is far easier to push yourself when others are around. Groups are naturally competitive and almost any group run (or group ride) will contain some high intensity stretches. It is also easier to suffer when others around you suffer too.

When you are by yourself pushing hard is much more difficult to do. You have to motivate yourself and then you have to make sure you follow through. That is much worse than it sounds, and it may be one of the reasons why people like gadgets. A gadget like a speedometer or a heart rate monitor (or a power meter on the bike) lets you know how hard you are going. That makes it much tougher to cheat or delude yourself.

The Boston marathon is coming up. There are less than two weeks to go and although I ran a lot this year, I haven't done much speed work. So this past week I decided to add some intensity. It started out well but in the end I did not do as much as I should have.

On Tuesday I ran 8 miles in the hills, including a two mile stretch on Grizzly at 9 mph. That was pretty hard. I had expected to run 8.5 but was able to hold 9 despite the rollers so I felt great afterwards.

On Wednesday I added a 7.5 mile run with a fast one-miler. On Thursday I ran to Montclair and back for a total of 7.5 miles. This stretch is not flat either but it has more flat sections than my usual 7.5 mile run and parts of it are similar in feel to the Boston course. On Friday I rode on rollers for 1 hour. Here I focused on spinning to add some leg speed.

On Saturday I drove Alistair to Milton/Copperopolis for his race, but it was too cold out there to run. The temperature was at 47 F/8 C with a nasty wind. I had counted on sun and so I did not bring warm clothing. Fortunately, as soon as we got back home the sun came out and it felt quite a bit warmer. I set out at 3 PM to do an 8 mile loop but ended up running 10.5 on Shepherd.

On Sunday we had a late winter storm and the weather was pretty horrible all day, except for early morning. I decided it would be better if I rested. I spent my time watching the Ronde and shopping around for flights to Boston.

Today I ran 8 miles to Montclair and back. There were showers in the morning but by afternoon the sun came out and it was warm and pleasant. I tried to do some speed work too, although I am not sure how effective it was.

My fundraising effort for the Brain Aneurysm Foundation is going so-so. In some ways it is going better than I expected, but on the other hand, I can't really say I am bringing in the dough. I'll be happy if I reach $1,000, and overjoyed if I can hit my target of $2,000.

01022010

In case you can't figure it out, think of today's date. It is a palindrome of sorts. The next one will be 11022011. Let's see if I will remember to post on that date.

Here are some final workout results for 2009.

Monday I ran on the treadmill for 33 minutes. I ran a 5K at 9 mph, which for me is pretty decent running.

On Tuesday I rode 30 miles to the top of Redwood (Chabot entrance), and on Wednesday I rode 40, over Wildcat to Orinda, Moraga and back over Redwood Rd.

On Thursday I closed out the year with a 10.5 mile run through Shepherd Canyon. The weather was nice and I felt good afterwards.

On New Year's day I ran 40 minutes on the treadmill, running 3 miles at 9 mph. Today I rode for 1:20 on my rollers.

I haven't made any New Years resolutions yet, other than to try to do well at the Boston marathon, where I will raise funds for the Brain Aneurysm Foundation. Other than that I have no races planned. I am toying with the idea of riding the 12 (or 24?) hours of Davis, but the timing is not ideal, given the closeness to Boston, and the likelihood I will have to go to a meeting there too just a few weeks later.

My next (work related) event is the JP Morgan investor meeting in San Francisco. Hopefully that will give a read on the upcoming year.

Exercise-wise, let's just say that some ultra event is planned, but as yet undefined.

Boston and more

The Brain Aneurysm Foundation is overwhelmed by requests for the 10, 2010 IM Lake Placid slots they received so I asked them to sell mine. I will do a fundraiser at the Boston Marathon instead. This is really a win-win for everybody. I can take a break from ironman -finally- and the foundation gets an extra fundraiser and a presence at the Boston Marathon to boot. The latter is key since they were denied official charity status for 2010. Now that Seth qualified maybe the two of us can break the ice here.

More great news: the feature in Competitor magazine was published, complete with a masterful shot by none other than Larry Rosa. It looks great and some people already noticed it too. By sheer coincidence I stopped at the bike store on Saturday and found the article in the most recent copy. Hopefully this article will raise additional awareness for our cause.

IM Lake Placid, shot by Larry Rosa

November and the weather is gorgeous. It is not for nothing that Oakland is said to have the best weather in the US! Yesterday I joined Team Specialized for a game of mountain bike polo in Fremont. It was great fun even though I had to play right-handed (I am a lefty), which certainly contributed to my rather frequent crashes. However, other than a little pedal mark on my left shin, no permanent damage was done.

On Tuesday I rode on rollers for 1:15, burning 1,221 calories.

On Wednesday I rested.

On Thursday I rode 28 miles on the KOM

On Friday I ran 10.5 in the hills (the shepherd loop)

On Saturday I rode to Danville with Alistair (56 miles).

Sunday was mountain bike polo day.

Today 40 miles, over Papa Bear and Happy Valley

Looking for a new challenge

I was reminded this morning of the Cal triathlete who put his tribike up for sale, "so he would not be tempted to do another asphalt triathlon." He was going to focus on XTerra events instead. I too am yearning for a new challenge. Ironman is all good fun but it is expensive. Now that my immediate family members are no longer interested in joining me there, it is inconvenient too.

Speaking of triathlon, the event I enjoy the most is the bike. Biking is my favorite sport and it is the one thing I truly enjoy doing at all times. Although I have come to like running better than before, the fact that I sweat so much makes running a loss less enjoyable for me. To say nothing of being prone to aches and pains.

As for swimming, I have to admit, it is rather boring. I am not very good at it, and I do not seem to improve much. It is somewhat ironic that I say that at this point, now that I just made a significant step in the right direction. The truth is I do like open water swimming (although maybe not with 2,000 of my best friends), but there are few opportunities for it where I live.

Lake Temescal is the best option, but there you have to pay and you have to swim in a small rectangle under the watchful eye of aspiring life-guards who always feel the need to make one comment or another. The other issue with Temescal is that the water is murky and foul tasting. Not ideal. Anza is close by too, but Anza is pretty much the same story if not worse. It tends to get very crowded to boot.

I feel I can live without swimming, but I have been thinking about the Boston marathon. The signup starts next week and I am not sure whether or not I should do it. It too is rather expensive and inconvenient -although I can still persuade the kids to come-, but I had committed to run three and this would be my third one. Three is a nice number. You could argue I should do 12 ironman races, but 11 is quite good too, and maybe I should have stopped at 10?

This morning I was looking to find out more info about the Great California Landrush. It is a two day double double century from SF to LA, that I did in 1990 or 91 and enjoyed greatly. It was organized by a group in Glendale called Wandervogel and they did a great job supporting it. Unfortunately, they stopped doing it in 1997 and nobody picked up on it.

I would love to ride across America. It is something that always intrigued me. I used to follow RAAM closely and dreamed about doing it one day. But the logistics are too complex. Logistics is one of my least favorite things and I am very poor at it. Organizing a RAAM entry would not work for me.

Last year I toyed with the idea of riding across the country with Alistair. Then I thought about crossing California (shorter and less logistics). But neither materialized and I ended up doing another Ironman instead; even though I had vowed to take a year off.

After meeting Seth in Penticton and discussing a major event like riding across America with him, my interest is re-awakened. It is something I would love to try. Another friend of mine is doing an organized trek across country right now, but his takes 45 days and that is not something I can afford to do. Furthermore I am not sure I would like it, the speed is too slow for me and there is no competitive angle. There needs to be a goal of sorts, a time limit, a cutoff, something.

That was what was fun about the Landrush. You could do it leisurely -although you had to make the flight on day two, but you could also aim for the "brevet" cutoffs. And although I did not sign up for those -I was unaware of these beforehand-, I did make all of them easily. And that made it fun!

Pacing

Here is my pace chart from Boston. The bars show my speed in every 5k/3.1mi segment. The last segment is only 2.2k/1.3 mi long. The differences are accentuated because the X axis starts at 6.8mph. The yellow graph shows the moving average. 8mph translates to 3:16:30. I did 3:22:21. I dropped below 8 at 16 miles (2 hours).

As you can see my speed first increased and then dropped as the race progressed. The much lower speeds in bins 6 and 7 are due to the infamous Newton hills. Without those hills I probably would gone smoothly from 7.81 to 7.53, without a dip. Still, the decline is real. I attribute it to the fact that I did not include any long runs in my training. The longest run I did this year, prior to Boston, was at 13.4 miles.

Ideally speaking one would need a flat graph. Some people that ended up running a 3:16 ran even with me in the beginning, but they kept their pace to the end.

I do remind the reader that my objective is not to run marathons. I use marathons to train for ironman races. If I really trained for the marathon I would probably be able to hold my speed better. That is why I think I could run a 3:15. But it would take a whole lot more training -especially long runs- to do that. Right now, this is training for Lake Placid in July.

Boston PR or is it PB?

I set a new PR in Boston: 3:22:21. According to the locals I should call it a Personal Best or PB since PR refers to public relations. My previous PR/PB was 3:24:50, set last year in Boston. I love Boston.

I can now say with some confidence that I have my marathon racing dialed in. It took a long time, but I finally did it. I know how to prepare for and race a marathon. I also think I can do better than 3:22:21 and 3:15 is in the cards. However, I am not sure I will as it would require more running and running is not exactly my thing.

I did well this time, no injuries other than some minor cramping near the end (i.e. I need more preparation to hold 8 mph), and a new blood blister on my toe. My shoes have pretty much had it. I am not sure how many miles I have run in them, but certainly a lot more than manufacturers recommend. But then again, manufacturers are in the business of selling new shoes and you don't sell new shoes unless people retire their old shoes.

I will spend some time to write some posts that go into detail about what I learned but I can start by saying that the learning was mostly of the "unlearning" type. I.e. whatever people recommend, don't listen to it. It was only when I stopped listening that I started to do better. 15-20 minutes better, no small potatoes either! And it holds up the way it should, i.e. I can repeat it. It is not a one-time fluke. 

I can now routinely run a 3:25 plus or minus, instead of a 3:40 plus or minus. I am faster and I feel better. I made an even bigger gain in my Ironman marathons. There the gains are well in excess of 20 minutes.

Another thing that makes it real is that I am getting older. I am past 50 and apparently past 50 you can't improve anymore. Whoever said that is full of s..t too, although it is certainly harder to improve past age 50 than it is for say a 20 year old.

A second fitness test

I repeated my 30 minute fitness test today and did better. I ran 4.5 miles in 30 minutes, like I did last year. There was nobody in the exercise room today so I could open the door. That made it much cooler and the lower temperature may have helped. Yesterday was warm and crowded (i.e. people on both treadmills next to mine). I am not sure all the variability is in the cooling, but some surely is.

Tomorrow I fly to Boston. I will rest until Monday, marathon day. We'll see how it goes. I will also cut my carbo-loading one day short because I was invited to lunch on Friday. Normally I would go low carb until Friday night and then eat all carbs Saturday and Sunday.

Tommeke threepeat

An impressive third victory for Tom Boonen in Paris-Roubaix today. He devastated the field, rode everyone off his wheel. Spectacular racing if I ever saw some. You can see parts on sporza.be under wielrennen (cycling).

I ran 14 miles today, a long loop out to Montclair to Joaquin Miller. Up JM to Skyline and then back home. A lot of climbing to be sure. Took 2:11 approximately. Boston, I am ready.

Yesterday I rode 35.5 miles on the Specialized after we came home from Copperopolis, where Alistair got 4th place. It was also the first time I beat someone down Wildcat--and a good rider too! 

On Friday I rode 42 to Castro Valley and back. I hit 269NP watts on my ergomo. (The NP is proprietary algorithm to account for intensity. I find it works well to predict how much effort I put in. 269 is one of the highest readings I ever scored for the distance).

Thursday I ran 7 miles in the rain. Not fun, but good prep for Boston I guess. And on Wednesday I swam 160 laps fast (approx. 3,000 meters). Tuesday 1:15 minutes on rollers, burning approximately 1,155 calories (It rained).

100K week

I did it. I ran 64.4 miles in seven days, or 9.2 miles a day. 103.4 Km. It is the most running I have ever done in a week's time. While it may not impress the hard-core distance runners among you, it did not come easy for me. Although I have to admit that the last two days were better. I did see a dip in the middle.

Every day for the past week (starting on Friday Feb 27), I ran 9.2 miles on the treadmill. I usually started out at 7.5 mph for a short .75 mile warmup. Then I would increase the speed to 8 mph or above. Every day except one, I managed to run slightly more than 8 miles in the first hour (including the warmup). A few days I ran over 8.2, which is pretty good for me. At no time did I ever reduce my speed during the first hour.

At the end of the hour, the treadmill would reset and I would continue at a slower pace -usually 7.0-7.5 for 10-15 minutes.

As a rule I lost slightly more than 2 pounds in fluid each and every time. The room temperature was a balmy 72-74, but I did use a fan to cool off.

I suffered no injuries, although once my left knee did act up a bit, and a few days later I had a diffuse ache in the other knee at night. I did develop a rather big blood-filled blister on my left little toe and some other smaller ones on other toes on my left foot. I also suffered a rubbing spot on my left ankle over the Achilles. Nothing major really.

I hope this will put me on a good base for the upcoming Boston marathon.

100K

Today was the third installment in the 100K week. I will try to run 100K this week-nine miles a day for seven days. Having said that, today I actually started doubting that I will succeed. During today's run, my left knee started acting up and 45 minutes into it, it was moderately painful. It did however, stay contained and I was able to finish 9.2 miles at a good pace.

I ran 8.2 miles for the first hour -including warmup- and then another mile at a slower speed of 7.2 miles per hour. The treadmills I am running on will only allow a 60 minute workout max. Then they either stop, or, in case of the more expensive version, they enter a mandatory "cooldown" period where speed drops to 4 mph. There are workarounds but it is kind of messy. In either case one has to briefly stop before going fast again. Not that I really want to run all that much longer at the pace I am running at. 8.2 and that is quite fast for me.

Opening weekend

For all you die-hard cycling fans out there, this was opening weekend. Never mind what went before, that was all just fun and games. Yesterday and today was "koers" for real. On Saturday, Omloop Het Volk, now renamed Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, -because the latter paper bought Het Volk-, was held under relatively mild conditions. There was even some sun on the course. Spectacular video on the internet on http://www.sporza.be. Look under "wielrennen," i.e. cycling.

The Omloop ended in a rather bizarre way and a crash near the finish left many competitors, including Boonen in a bad spot. The race was won by Thor Husvod from Norway. Today Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, in somewhat worse weather, saw a spectacular win by Tommeke in a sprint finish. Both races are held in Flanders and cover some of the same cobbles and climbs.

I, for one, decided not to ride this weekend and Alistair came down with a rather nasty stomach flu. Furthermore, the weather in Northern California wasn't much better than in Belgium and I already did four days of that recently. Additionally, the Boston marathon is coming up and I need to train if I am to do well. So once again, I absconded to the gym and ran on the treadmill. I ran the same 8.8 miles, keeping nearly the same pace as yesterday, which is pretty good I say. 

I am thinking about running 100K this week, or 62.5 miles. To do so, I would have to run nearly 9 miles a day every single day of the week. That may be a bit much but we will see how things evolve. Maybe I need to insert one or two slow days, where I take a bit more time to get to 9.

Sunny and crisp

Yesterday was a photographer's dream. It was sunny and the Bay was so clear you felt like you could touch the city from the Oakland Hills. The kids were off from school, not sure why, but they were. Alistair and I went on a mountain bike ride in Redwood and Chabot. We rode a good 30 miles, going out Redwood east to Pinehurst and Bort. Then riding the single track on the Meadow to the Stone bridge and back. Then up on McDonald, Redwood west and on to Sibley.

We decided to go down Sibley to the other side of Old Tunnel. They recently opened the trail for bicycles and it is a nice bumpy descent. Near the bottom it was quite muddy and there were a few creek crossings filled with water. Quite fun. Then we noticed you could go up the old road into Sibley -no cars, but bikes and pedestrians are OK. Although I had never done it, it sounded better than riding Fish Ranch.

The road goes up for quite a while and then links to the trials that go to the mazes. So we added another 1.5-2.0 miles and a whole bunch of climbing that way.

Today, it was a bit warmer still so I decided to go for a long run. I ran to Montclair and then up Shepherd. I added a little extra at the end for a good 11 miles. I haven't done this run for a while and it showed. By the end of it my legs were quite tired. It is not just the distance, there is a serious amount of climbing too. And some of it is quite steep. It took me about 1.5 hrs. 

I will start working on my running more to prepare for Boston. I would love to run a 3:15 or better, but anything that qualifies me for next year is Ok with me. We'll see how it goes. I will probably go to Europe before Boston and in two weeks I am going to DC. The travel could mess up my schedule, but so could the weather for that matter. We'll see how it goes.

Lost a nice day

Another perfect day, warmer than yesterday. However due to a series of complications and outside events I was unable to go out and ride. Too bad really. I ended up riding about 1:15 on my rollers instead. I rode the first 20 minutes at a 250W average and the total at a 233W average. That is pretty good and it made me wonder why I am not doing better in bike races.

I have often thought about how good I could have been, had I started earlier. I never really exercised until I was 33. I am still improving year over year past age 50, so I clearly have not ever hit my top performance.

This year I set two objective PR's. The first was the Boston marathon, the second IM Arizona. I ran a marathon that was age-equivalent to 3:01. That is not super great but it is not bad either. Especially considering that I am a pretty poor runner. I also think I can run faster, and a 3:10-15 should be do-able. That would be age equivalent to a 2:50 or so.

I rode the Ironman at 215W average for 112 miles. That too is pretty good. It would be even better if I were lighter or more aero. Neither my weight nor my position is optimal. I am pretty heavy compared to an elite cyclist and at least 1o lbs heavier than I was in my 30's. As for aero: I am not even close to being aero when you look at the pictures. I sit straight up, and even in aero position I am high. I have this picture of myself riding with a pro triathlete. It was taken at IM Canada in 2006.  I sit up and he is flat. You can judge for yourself.

Boston Marathon

I signed up for the Boston Marathon of 2009. Surely there is no greater race, at least none that I know of. It beats Ironman hands down. Nothing like 26.2 miles of screaming fans to bring you home. I think there were two stretches, less than half a mile each, where only a few fans were lining the road. The rest of the way was three or four thick and making a hell of a racket.

The Boston marathon is like one great traffic jam from Hopkinton to Boston. It carries you along in a huge wave of humanity. It is the ultimate trip with a downtown finish like no other. Some argue only New York is bigger but I can't tell. I've never done New York, but I am considering it for next year. This year would have been great but it is too close to my Arizona Ironman.

Yippee Boston, here I come.