#Project18 Fail Turkey Trot 2010

My 9th Turkey Trot(16th annual) didn't go as I had hoped.  The weather turned to crap.  Sleep is a thing of the past with Alex now.  I figured surely I could break 19:00 with all the running I've been doing, especially after running 19:13 last year with zero running.  Well that's what I get for thinking.  19:00.0000.  I screwed myself going out too fast.  I told my self not to get caught up in the wave in the first mile.  Nope did it anyway(mistake #1). 5:36 for the first mile.  I panicked a little and throttled back(mistake #2). Ran second mile a little too comfortable in 6:20.  Fell asleep in the 3rd mile (mistake #3) 6:26.  Saw the finish clock & sprinted for all I was worth to hit 19 exactly. Damn so close.  Should have leaned.  What I should have done was run even splits.  I guess I'll have to regroup & hit a 5k next week.

The Time Has Come

Nine plus months of waiting are over.  Tomorrow is GO TIME!  Going to go off the grid for a bit(I've been banned from Twitter, FB, Tumblr, etc) but will post pics, etc after K2 is settled & named.  Yes we still don't have a name.  I think besides that we are all set.  His room is done. Cleaning the carpets this afternoon.  Baby seat is in the car.  Amber's bag's are packed.  Off to the hospital in the am to finally meet K2.

Took advantage of my last 4 days off to catch up on choirs, errands, etc so that they are all out of the way.  Went ahead and took advantage of todays warm temps to hang the Xmas lights.  It way to early but its warm & I was motivated.  I mean I was up at 3 am.  I ran, watched the super prestige race, so needed some thing to do. The early wake ups have let me get a lot of stuff done, including a good run every morning.  Plus I've squeezed in a killer nap every afternoon.  Might as well get them while I can.

Turkey Trot is Thursday.  #project18's big day.  Did a speed workout Saturday that I hope says I'll hit the 18 mark. I have to avg 6:07 miles to go under 19:00. Going to be wicked cold though.  If my Jpow embro shows I'll wear shorts, if not it will be a tight morning.  Never been able to run very fast in tights.

Well all for now.  Wish us luck!

Me Productive?

Doesn't seem right to be productive while on a stay-cation.  Yesterday I woke up at 4 am so decided to get a jump on the day.  Managed to get a chilly 5 mile run in.  Hit the dentist.  Took Mia with me to get my hair cut.  Plus to cap it off changed the oil in the Volvo.  After all that I took a 2.5 hr power nap.  That's a full day right there.  Pretty much couch surfed the rest of evening.

Today I woke up @ 3:30 am.  I guess it lets me catch up on a bunch of shows on the DVR.  I figure the sleep deprivation will prepare me for the arrival of K2 next week.  Speaking of we go to the Dr. this afternoon for a sonogram & what should be the final Dr. apt.  The contractions are coming pretty regularly so it should be soon.

I got in a pretty cold 6 miler this am.  26f with wind chill.  What's crazy is 70 is predicted for this weekend.  Thanksgiving day about race time at the Turkey Trot its supposed to be 22f.  I ordered some J-Pow embro so hopefully it shows up before Thursday.

Ambers off to the anesthesiologist for a consult on the epidural.  I think Mia & I are going to hit the garage to work on the mtb's disc brakes.  Lots of good advice so I'll try again.  With the weather predicted I think it would be good to hit the trails.  It'll be the only way to avoid the hurricane force winds that will come with the temps.

Getting Ready for '11

Yesterday I decided to do some prep work for 2011.  Mostly get the MTB off the rack & get it ride-able.  Air up the tires, put the chain back on, & bleed the brakes.  Little did I know the brakes were going to eat my lunch & destroy a whole afternoon.  Four hours later, a lot of cussing, a few thoughts about killing a Hayes engineer, taking a shower in brake fluid, and I got the rear brake kinda workable.  Yes just one freaking brake in 4 hours!

After looking online it seems Hayes has the worst design for disc brakes on the market.  Turns out most shops won't even bleed them, they send them back to Hayes.  I did manage to find a feasible work around to keep me from having to pull them & send them in.  Luckily I don't mind a brake thats a little soft so I'm semi happy.  I'm a little leery about bleeding the front brake now, but will dive in to it perhaps this afternoon.

2011 will bring some changes for me.  Training with 2 kids will be the big one.  Not a huge problem in the winter since I ride so much on the trainer anyway.  Another big change will be my racing age is 40.  That means full on Masters racing for me. Road, MTB, & CX.  I'll probably do a few open CX races, & maybe a 1/2/3 crit or 2, but mostly racing with the old men.

My two readers may have noticed I pulled the SKC logo from the old blog.  SKC has decided not to sponsor a team anymore so I'm team-less for 2011.  Not that big a deal with my limited schedule anyway.  SKC will be around but mostly sponsoring rider participant events like the MS150.  I have a few options on the table but I may just get an all black get & race for Team Me.

2010 wasn't much of a racing year for me.  I had what I thought was a great spring of training.  Only to have crappy results in the few races I did.  Granted my TT at Hermann doesn't count since I was stopped by the semi.  I carried a huge fatigue load that I was writing off to working nights & all the training I was doing.  I had noticed last fall I was having trouble gaining any form, but figured it was getting used to racing 60 min in Opens & readjusting to nights.  Well not so.  I managed to get a medical explanation for it.  Hopefully now I know the problem I can control it.  As it stands not racing for most of the year may have helped from really burning me out chasing my tail to no avail.

K2 is due in less than 2 weeks so I'll have something good to blog about again.  Plus maybe a 5k race report or two.

This That & the Other

Lots going on here in my little slice of the world.  We are now on weekly baby doc status.  Amber doesn't think the boy is going to wait till his due day to make his appearance.  I'm beginning to think so too.  I have my vacation scheduled but mostly because I didn't want to loose out on getting the week of Thanksgiving off.  I know its a crap shoot for it to work out but I have another week of vacation to play with if I need it.

Not much riding going on, maybe 1 or 2 rides a week right now.  Been focusing on the run.  Going to try & get another 5k in before the Turkey Trot, hopefully.  Been so damn windy lately riding isn't very appealing.  In fact in makes doing run intervals unappealing as well.  Last time I ran in circles the wind killed me.  Pretty much decided the road bike is going to be mounted to the trainer for the winter.  Any outside riding will be done on the CX or MTB.  Which means I've got to put the MTB back together.  Right now it has no chain & 2 flat tires.  Not optimal for riding.

As I told Amber lack of ride time frees up more time for me to piddle.  The hacks have began.  Last week I rooted an iPod shuffle to banish iTunes from it.  I'm not a fan of iTunes since its like the Borg & takes over your computer.  I've switched to VLC for my multimedia pleasure.  Its open source & feature packed.  I highly recommended it.  Yesterday I finally got around to setting up the Wii for streaming Netflix.  Next up is hacking the Wii to run on Linux so I can get more out of it.  Which will give me insentive to finally multiboot the computer to run on Linux & XP.  Been reading about it for awhile so its time to pull the trigger.  I've got a few more mods kicking around in my head just have to motivate & find the free time to work on them.

I had more to write about but have forgotten most of it now.  Besides I'm just blogging in an attempt to stall for lacing up & going for a run.

Don't forget Speed.TV is streaming P1 from the F1 race in Brazil in the am.  Starts at 8am.

This is from Japan where Kobayashi put on a passing clinic.  I've become a huge fan of him as well of most of the F1 fans in the world.


The F1 season is down to 2 races.  The driver & constructor championships are up for grabs & getting hot.   Hopefully Mr. Webber can keep it on the track & make up for the brain fart he had in Korea.


I read today that Mr. Vettel is using an engine this weekend thats on its 3rd race.  He's hard on engines so I'm thinking he might have another epic come apart like Korea.



Which hopefully will make him get in line & finally help Webber out instead of crashing into him.