Coming soon...

My new website is coming soon .... things are coming together!  I am looking forward to continuing blogging, but maybe with a little more focus, and with a little more personal twist.  Plus - in my own, short, domain.  The new site won't be much different from this one I expect, but should give me the chance to muse into some more interesting topics.  I hope you'll come along.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, in the training department things are picking up again.  I've re-established an 8-hour per week training base, which came back to me pretty easily.  So far, there aren't any really long sessions besides my long Saturday runs with the team - but those miles are starting to get high.  12 last week, 10 this week, and then on to 15.  With April on our doorstep, the spring marathons are getting close.  As the days get warmer, I'll be back out on the bike, and then the training hours will really come easy.

I've gone to two-a-day workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, combining morning or early-lunchtime swimming or yoga with my afternoon runs.  The work days remain 8 hours, but they start to spread out when they switch from 8 in a row to 8 with a big break.  Nonetheless, I've been honest with myself: I don't feel great in the mornings.  My guts just have a hard time getting going.  However, I like to be up early and I'm pretty tough about it; even cheerful.  It's just the idea of getting up early to do a swim workout feeling yucky never really seems like it will lend itself to the most productive swim workout.  So - why not still get up early, but head on in to work?  Then by the time I've had some breakfast, gotten some things done, and begun to feel antsy being "seated" at my desk, I'm ready to get up and work out.   Brilliant.  When I return to the office, I'm hungry for a satisfying post-workout lunch, filled back up with energy, and ready to take on the afternoon.  A few hours to sit and digest lunch, fall into the post-lunch slump, finish off some projects, then pick myself back up for the post-work workout, which always perks me back up.

Today I did my first session of hill repeats on Bascom hill downtown at UW - wahoooooo, that's a serious climb.  Well, it's not super high or steep, I guess, but when taken at a tough pace it just keeps on going and going... by the half-way mark I can tell it's a really, really good workout.  It's fun to be far from alone: at this time of year in this healthy little city, runners are all over the place, and I'm glad to be one of them.

Energy, Continuity, and Momentum

I spent the week in a DOT training course on highway hydraulics.  Sounds riveting, doesn't it?  Well, to be honest - it is!  Water is an impressive and interesting substance: I've written about its strength, its ability to change phases, and more.  It doesn't change directions easily, so a stream of it can carry a lot of material around (such as, say, Louisiana), or destroy roadways and buildings, as has been all to evident in the news from Japan.  Our bodies are mostly made up of it, so its clean supply is a top priority in international relations security. (Where it might not appear to be now - it sure will be in the future.)

Water is also reasonably easy for me to understand in a scientific or engineering setting.  It's like an object one might study in simple physics, experiencing effects from gravity and friction.  On top of that, it occupies the shape of whatever it might be contained inside, often tries to escape, and is influenced by pressure... *sigh*, it has so many more exciting properties.  What did I sit down to talk about?  As a preface, I'm including a very brief movie, from a recent swim form-check, and from the flume, used to demonstrate hydraulic properties.

Well, to analyze hydraulics, scientists have developed a few key equations.  Fundamental principles that sum it all up - and when applied can be used to predict water's behavior, in pretty much any situation, from a stream to a storm drain.  The three components?  Energy, Continuity, and Momentum.

Ha - how about that, blogger-writer Dano thought!  Just like in triathlon!  Especially on the bike, the simple principles of physics seem to make a lot of sense.  Put energy into a system (me!) to make it go up a hill: then find myself full of potential energy, the conversion of which to kinetic energy in the form of a descent equals FUN!  Momentum is a great piece of physics to take advantage of as the descent of one hill gives way to the climb of the next one.  Swimming through the water is, I believe, the best way to understand its properties first-hand, and understand the significance of momentum through the water.  There's a magic feeling in striking a harmony where body position and stroke mechanics give way to gliding through the pool or lake.

Momentum and Continuity speak loudly to me as a parallel with training overall: the overall goals, and the consistency of training tend to translate into good outputs.  Continuous operation along a plan, toward a goal.  Put energy in as breakfast and watch it come out as activity.  The body is a fantastic machine; water is one interesting substance.

DATA

Welcome to season four.

This time - with MORE DATA!

I've always been reluctant to jump on the gadget bandwagon.  I like to "simplify".  I take good care of the things I buy, I tend to select well-reputed instruments that are likely to respond to my care with long service lives.  When I'm not using them, I put them away - and yes, I keep all the cables bunched up with rubber bands so they don't make a big sloppy knot.
And at the bottom line, two of my values in this arena are: it's more important to have meaningful relationships with the people right next to you than focus in on some electronic device, and there is no substitute for the engine.
I enter my fourth season as a runner with a slight tear in the band of my original 4-function Timex Ironman watch, which sometimes takes in a little moisture through the tiny crack in its face, but which also saw me safely and happily through 140.6 miles of serious racing and much more.  There are clocks all over the races, anyway.  In one like Ironman, you can get a lot of timing information right from the sun!
I've often run with friends with Garmins.  Some of them are cool: they can tell those running with them how far they've gone in addition to the time; they can also always find their way home if necessary.  Sometimes, these runners are annoying, using the instantaneous speed indicator to constantly blurt out a pace that I don't always really care about on every run.  How does it feel?  Perceived exertion is an excellent indicator - and even fluctuates as necessary based on what one has to offer the workout on any given day.  When the numbers on a clock take away from the joy of running with a friend and talking about something, I'm not so interested anymore.
So it was with caution that I began to consider a Garmin of my own.  I had a large REI dividend coming.  I love to track all the elements of my workouts, sometimes mapping out detailed routes to find out where I should go, or where I've been.  I'm not judgmental about them, but I love to look at the numbers.  I love the data.  I plot it out, I color it in, I group it in different ways, I check its trends.  So I got to thinking - if there were a way that I obtain all this data - and more - while spending *less* time on gathering it, and effectively not even have to pay for it (ie, dividend), well, wouldn't that be cool?
So with the promise to myself that I would use it for purposes of good, I jumped in.  Man, this thing is awesome.  As with many of my purchases, I opted to save several hundred dollars by not buying the state-of-the-art version with functions I would never use, but I'm still thrilled with all the ForeRunner 205 gives me.   On the go, I can see things like my time (duh), pace, and distance.  It can tell me how to get home, show me a map of where I've gone, estimate how many calories I've burned.  If I want, it will beep at me if I go too fast, or too slow, or cross certain benchmarks.  It even has a Virtual Training Partner who will "run" at a given pace so I can "race" him.  Or her :)
At home, the fun intensifies.  I can see the route I took overlaid on an aerial map, a street map, or Google Earth.  I can see my total time, running time, elapsed time, stopped time.... distance, splits, paces, elevation... graphs of speed versus time with elevation overlaid... even an interactive map-elevation-pace spread.
It works on the bike, so I don't necessarily need an additional bike odometer.  It works on the run, so I don't necessarily need to plot out a detailed route.  After a week, I've already realized the power this device has to let me bolt out the door completely free, and gather the information I want - on the go.  I can spend more time training and less time plotting and charting.
Not to mention, as the winter gives way to spring but the mornings are still pretty dark and some of the days are still pretty chilly, it's a good extra motivator to get out the door and go play with the new toy.

Race Report: Shamrock Shuffle

The second week of March in Madison .... ahhh, good times.  The sun is warm enough to linger on the front steps for a few minutes in the afternoon, after checking on the day's progress of peeking tulip tops and blooming snow drops.  Piles of snow are melting away to reveal the earth below, and plenty of grit on the road otherwise beckoning: "get out your bikes!"

Although road racing in Madison never really stops, the onset of early spring signals the beginning of the new season - both in sunlight and in numbers.  Last week turned over the 6-months-till-Ironman mark!  So, whether I'm still feeling lethargic in the morning or not, it's time to get down to business.  More on that later.  Although we lost an hour of sleep to daylight savings' time, Sunday was a successful morning.

The Team In Training gang, made up of current and alumni participants, was large in number and in attitude.  Folks seemed to be having a good time as they gathered at Overture Center to prep for the race.  Some were taking on their first race ever!  I get really excited to experience this accomplishment for my friends.  Very proud of everyone who came out and sported TNT on the course, and especially those who did for the first time.

I lead the team through some warm-ups down in Overture, then we took to the street!  As usual, it was festive and there were a lot of fun outfits out there.  (Go tutu runner kph!)  The 10k went off first and I was able to hand out some high-fives to my teammates as they streamed across the starting line.  Next came the 5k.  Now, I try not to be too much of a competitive guy, but I do pay attention to my own Personal Records.  It's a good way to keep pushing myself, which I think is useful.  Of course, sometimes to win at your own game, you have to play the numbers.  I looked at my training at this time last year, and the year before; I looked at my 5k and 10k times, I looked at my mileage so far this year... blah blah, and came to the conclusion that if I was going to have a go at keeping up the PR streak, I'd better tackle the 5k, and go all out.

I went ahead and started near the front, so I could follow Jackie's great advice that she gave me two years ago about spring races.  They're good tests (and it doesn't matter what grade you get as long as you're honest with yourself), and they're short, so go out hard, and see if you can hang on!  And so I was off.  No intention of trying to hang with the couple of packs I saw blasting off the front: dudes who win 5k's run way faster than I ever will - they're specialists and track guys whose paces begin with "5".  No thanks.  Before a minute passed, I was already going past the back of the 10k field, which had only started moments before.  It was cool to see a couple of my marathon teammates, who were prudently putting in their long run for the day on the 10k course, at a speed more appropriate for marathon training!

Then the hills. Even in the short span of a 5k, this race goes up over Bascom Hill ... and back!  Climbing, climbing, I tried to mind my form, keep powering up, and yet not completely explode.  The other runners were quiet, so I had to do a little encouraging of my own.  After a solid climb, I leveled out and gathered my stride, then went careening down the back side of the hill.  The course split, and a volunteer waved and shouted "5k left, 10k straight."  I banked left, still careening downhill, then leveled off on the flats.  A moment later, I got a very strange feeling.  All the other runners around me were going much, much slower.   There didn't seem to be any other runners really pushing it.

Holy crap, I thought, I've gone the wrong way.  My worst nightmare.  That volunteer made a mistake or I didn't hear him right, and after all that hard work, I'd have to give it all up.  What would I do?  I couldn't go back onto the 5k course, I'd be DQ'd for deviating from the course!  I could just go ahead and finish the 10k unofficially... maybe I would still get a time?  I'd certainly have to ease up from this ridiculous pace, though.  Oh, dear.  My PR.  My teammates will get a laugh about it, anyway.... this went on for a minute or so, as I eased off my running pace - until a sleek guy in a black Fleet Feet jacket passed me.  I thought about it for a minute - this guy looks pretty serious.  He's here, too.  Did he make a mistake, too?  I shouted out "hey, are you running 5k or 10k?"  He said 5k.  "Well - what are all these other people doing here, then?"  They started early, with the 10k wave, to get a little extra course time, or because they got antsy and just started early, he noted.  Um, duh Dano.   Perhaps the hill climb had made me lose my better judgment.  I chatted with the Fleet Feet fellow for a minute - very pleasant guy - then thought I'd better be quiet because we were racing and I didn't want to be annoying, especially since he just saved me from my mental oversight.

So then there were two more miles.  Phew.  Kept pushing on the flats, grabbed a cup of water that I barely didn't choke on, then ran back up over that monster hill!  The walkers were heading the other direction at that point, and were very supportive, which I was glad to receive.  I was feeling pretty bad - you know, gasping and spitting and whatnot - so it was good to hear some encouragement!  I run this hill in training sometimes, which is good mental practice, to know what it feels like on the legs, heart and lungs.  Answer: "not too good!"  Some days, for some of us, this is a lot of fun.  Why?  I don't know.  I crested and went careening down the other side of the hill in the other direction, finally making my way home.  At this point, I had left the Fleet Feet guy behind and was inching toward a certain green-shirt-guy in front of me, but he could hear me close to him and he had it turned way up.  This was exactly what I needed to keep going hard through the end of this early-season 5k, where I had gone out too hard and was really in the pain cave!  So, I ran him down.  I followed him in the second-to-last turn, then pushed past into the last turn.

I recalled last year making the final turn and not realizing how close the finish line was, and being a little disappointed that I hadn't gone into "final approach" a little earlier.  This year, I timed it just right.  Except, I believe this year the finish line may have been even *higher* up State Street than the year before, because it seemed to take an eternity to get there!  Because I had just passed green-shirt-guy, I had to keep going hard so he didn't pass me back.  The fans were pretty quiet - maybe because it was pretty chilly.  There weren't really any other runners around, and the vacant street might have felt a little strange - now that I think back on it - if I weren't completely focused on the finish banner.  I started to try to capture my "come to the present moment and be one with the pain in your legs" idea, which lasted for about five seconds, before I heard some fans shouting "he's right behind you!"  Uh, right - racing!  I'm used to having a fun time and going after my PR's, but this saying was brand new to me - but pretty exciting.  I pushed a bit more, and then at the very last second, who did I see but the Fleet Feet guy coming around me!  And instantly, I thought, this guy deserves to finish in front of me, for having helped me not give up when I thought I was going the wrong way, and putting up with my chatting with him for a minute back at mile 1.  I don't think I had any more speed available to the line, but if I did, the line was still his.  Yeah, it was good.  In the chute, I looked around and didn't see anyone... I knew we had run well but really didn't think we had just won.  Were we the first?  Impossible.  Well, if we were, it was irrelevant, because the race was chip-timed and there were, as promised, a few sub-6 guys somewhere in the pack.

I grabbed a couple waters, caught up with Grant who had just finished as well, and headed on back down to the final turn to cheer in my friends and teammates for 40 minutes or so until the post-race chills set in and told me to head on back inside.  Once I got home and checked the results, I saw that I had managed to break my PR - by a whopping 5 seconds.  1 per k, I guess.  Fun day.  Good race.  Go Team.  Yay hills!

Clarity

I'm not trying to boast about my eye surgery, but still feel so grateful for what it's done for me.  I think about it all the time, because seeing is something I do constantly!  When something is tough in life, it's easy to put a lot of effort into thinking about it, but it can be a lot harder to focus in on being grateful for the things that are going well.  "Wow, I hardly felt my liver today, and I think it's doing great!"  :)

Numerically, my vision is a little bit better since the surgery than it was with contacts, but there's something about it that is much better.  Sure, not dealing with contacts - in the morning, in the evening, in the pool - is nice, but it's the clarity itself that has been really nice.  I might see about the same or a little better, but I think about the clarity much more.  Timing might have been perfect to get my eyes fixed during a time in my life where I deliberately tried to spend more time looking around, and smelling the roses.  I like to just look at things - so many of them!  At night, even though there is a bit of a "starburst" effect around lights for now, that just gives them a bit of a new dimension, in a visual landscape of brilliant objects sharply defined.  Having better vision has been the perfect complement for taking the time to use it.

As a nice side effect, I have had much better success lately in those situations where something gets bumped or dropped, and instinctively I reach out to try to catch it.  In the past, I usually missed, then went on to clean up the mess.  Since the surgery, though, I have surprised myself with several impressive catches.  Better resolve or better vision - who knows?  At any rate, I'll take it.

With spring time approaching, there's a lot to take in.  So many things to sense - it seems that spring is rich for all the senses, because the re-emergence of life brings such variability, such a rich difference from wintertime.  I ran through the arboretum last night with two new friends, around Lake Wingra, as the sun set in a clear sky and gave way to the brightest starts.  The snowy ground stretched for miles, punctuated by not obscured by leafless trees.  Spring bird sounds filled the mild air, otherwise calm and quiet but for the footfalls and conversations of friends sharing the evening.  As we finished, we looked across the frozen lake in the twilight, taking in the spectacle of the entire 6.5-mile route we had just completed and feeling impressed to travel such a distance by foot.  Thanks, JN and RJ.

I'm looking forward to seeing everything that it brings, this year in a newer way than ever before.

Yoga Testimonial

After several years of yoga, one night recently I wrote to the owner with some thoughts about what Yoga means to me.  I was delighted that my letter was published on the studio's website - here's a link and the text:

http://innerfireyogacenter.com/testimonials

Thanks – as always – for class last night. I came in with a bunch of anxiety and left as a sort of peaceful jell-o. Your encouragement and compassion are important to so many people.

There’s a saying in marathon running: “God gave us legs to run 20 miles, then gave us a 26.2-mile race!” It’s an incredible truth: I’ve run five marathons now, and the same phenomenon has happened every time. After about 20 miles, the legs are spent and everything is hurting, and for me all time stands still. What happens next is either immense presence, or infinity – which I’ve come to understand are one in the same – and a fantastic opportunity to transcend time and bodily pain in favor of an inward journey. Just as you said last night, it all comes down to deciding to stick with it: for 60 seconds or for 60 minutes – just one instant into another. I’ve evolved emotionally over the past few years as I’ve become a runner. This past October I ran the Athens Marathon – the 2,500th anniversary of the ‘original’ marathon – and found that I was able to focus in to an incredible, timeless place, where time and pain seemed to vanish and the present moments became evident. I went on that pilgrimage thinking that perhaps I would be able to somehow connect to that first run so long ago, and discovered that it wasn’t about something in the past – but something entirely relevant to the exact present. (Here’s a link to my race report)

I give credit to my practice at Inner Fire Yoga for being the single most critical and essential part of all my training for running, triathlon – even the Ironman. I couldn’t have done it without Inner Fire Yoga. I’ve signed up for my second Ironman – here in Madison this fall! What I think will be the most important part of my training – just as we develop in class – will be to set aside preconceptions, inflated egos, and past experiences to approach the race with a joyful and open beginner’s mind. Thanks so much for giving me a place to build the foundations for an entirely new and improved life.”

Training plans I do not believe in

A teammate loaned me a copy of a triathlon-related documentary DVD.  I'll leave it at that because while I'm grateful to the friend for loaning me the disc, and I appreciate the efforts of the filmmakers and the people it documents, I'm not inspired.  I've been watching while spinning in the basement, as the sun slowly makes longer and longer arcs across the winter sky.

The only way the film is inspiring me is in a certain kind of solidarity to myself, rather than inspired by the things they're doing in the film.  Or perhaps motivated by seeing images from the races that get me feeling good about being there myself this season.  The film chronicles the training season of several first-time Ironman athletes, and while I appreciate their efforts, some of their opinions represent my own pet peeves.

• One was noting how hard the schedule was: "with Ironman, it's hard because you have to do long rides on Saturdays".  Actually, you can shift your schedule around to do a long ride any day!  In most cases, it's simply "weekly."  You can build a 10-day schedule so long rides fall on varying days, even.  Once, I got up super early and did an 80-mile ride before going to work a half day on a summer Friday.  Who says a half day has to be the first half?  (Well, sometimes the boss does, yes.)  Training schedules work best when they are designed around the rest of your life.  The part you are trying to enhance by doing Ironman, not the the other way around.
• One athlete is a student, and talks about bailing out of class to go bike.  I can relate to this - especially when the weather's extra nice and the scheduled ride is longer.  But it's a tough call - what's more important each day?  It can be hard to know.
• These guys are going crazy with their training volumes, and worrying about it, first thing in the season.  When I start the season, I like to ease into things to avoid injury, and let the volume fluctuate a bit to allow my body to recover when it needs it.
• The interviewer asks the athletes about gear, and the cost of gear.   They confidently start in with "you need..." and list all nature of gizmos and equipment.  Really, the "need" category can be a lot more limited than some people think.  Sure, even the basics can be pretty expensive in the sport, but you can enjoy a lot of success without a Garmin, heart rate monitor, compression stuff, even aero wheels.  "Need" for gear can be closely linked to "values" in racing.  There's no substitute for the engine.
• At a mid-season race, one woman brings her young daughters, who sport shirts reading "my mommy is faster than your mommy."  Cute, but I prefer the ones that say things like "go mommy go" or "future triathlete".  Putting down is not a triathlon value.  The kids didn't even seem to be too excited about any of it.  I'm saddened, too, that the "mommy" in this case is not even particularly "fast", but is completely focused on all her times, to the extent that if she does not make a certain time goal in her first Ironman, she will be disappointed.  The interviews with her husband seem to indicate a good deal of stress within the household.  I wonder if she's missing the part about the sport being for fun?  On the other hand, I recognize the overwhelming sense of need for achievement that pursuing this goal can evoke.

Perhaps this is just another illustration of how deeply personal the Ironman journey is.  Everyone goes after something different, and takes away something different.  For me, my training plan sticks with staying healthy and having fun.  The hard work will fit right in when those come first.