Loathing in self pitty

I had every F1 race from 2011 stored on a hard drive on one of my networked HD's.  I went to copy a few races for a friend & I discovered the HD had died.  When I say died I mean Yoda couldnt save the contents.  I broke out all my Linux HD saving tools to no avail.  In a true moment of frustration I spilt a High Life. Guess that was one for my F1 homey's.  Please internet gods be seeding all the 2011 races so I can replace my list HD...plz plz plz

Anatomy of a bonk

It has gotten warm enough for the winter leg hair to come off

 Most hair I've had on my legs in probably 22 years.

 Mia came up and rubbed my leg & told me Daddy that's better. 

 Being warm I figured I'd better carry more fluids on my long runs.  I've been using a fanny pack with gel flask.  Instead of forking out $20 for a hand bottle that I didn't know if I would like or not I just made my own.  A water bottle, some duck tape, some webbing, & a hand bottle is born.

 Yesterday I planned on a 14 miler.  Temps were predicted to be 78-80.  I don't normally do well in the heat especially not the first hot day of the year.  My plan was to get out in the AM to have my run done before the heat.  Well that din't happen.  Amber got called into work so my AM window slammed shut.  


Instead I decided to mow the yard & run later.  When Amber got home I was pretty tired & wanted to take a nap but Amber told me to get my ass out the door.  I sucked down a caffeine gel 7 a glass of water.  Strapped on my new hand bottle filled with water & 2 gels mixed in.  Out the door and on my way.  Didn't feel great but not terrible.  My pace dropped little by little till I hit the turn around @ 7 miles.  Then my quads started hurting & I got slower & slower & slower. 


Full fledged bonk was starting to work me over.  It wasn't helped by the fact that by mile 11 I had drained my 1 bottle & there was no place to fill it back up.  The last four miles were an absolute death march.  I haven't run bonked in a long time & I certainly have never wanted to walk so bad while running in my life.  I kept running all be it very slow.  I knew I'd be screwed if I stopped.  It got so bad I had to turn off the podcast I was listening to because it was so hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. 


When I finally made it home I drained two bottles of water.  Then submerged myself in an ice bath.  After eating dinner on went the compression tights.  Amber was feeling a little sore so she borrowed a pair of compression socks.

My compression buddy.

Last night I slept for almost 11 hours.  Got up for a few hours this AM then took a 2.5 hour nap.  Sleep doping.  I still haven't gotten out to run yet today.  Legs are pretty sore.

Good article explaining Pull Rod suspension vs Push Rod Suspension in F1 cars

Garmin Forerunner 210 & ANT+ Heart Rate Monitors

As I've mentioned before my Heart Rate Monitor has been screwing up lately.  With some fiddling I got it to work some.  Then last week it quit all together.

I did some Googling looking for answers:

Flip the battery for a few seconds to reset it. Tried it didn't help.

New battery, tried that didn't work.

Then I found a post with people complaing about how often the Garmin soft straps go bad. Crap I figured I was going to have to buy a $50 strap.
The Forerunner is ANT+ but the Forerunner 210 documentation is a little vague about if third party ANT+ HR straps will work.  The forums weren't much help.  Some said yes some said no.  That's forums for you.

While looking up HR straps Power Tap's HR strap popped up.  Cool I have one of those hanging in the closet.  I put the strap on & waited for it to pair.  Nope.  HMMM


• If Heart symbol
is off, press and hold menu,
and select HR Monitor > On.
• If Heart symbol
is flashing, from the timer
page, press page to view the heart
rate page.
The Forerunner searches for your
heart rate signal for 30 seconds.

Bingo I now have my PowerTap HR strap working with my Forerunner.  I saved $50 & Get to use something I already have.  Win Win

Foggy AM Commute

I normally keep my phone locked away safely in its otter box, but yesterday the fog was so cool on the greenways that I figured I would pull it out if the fog repeated.

Didn't run before work tonight, I slept in an extra hour instead.  Have to get up mid day to go to Alex's Dr appointment.  Figured the extra sleep was a better idea.  Only have to cram 8 extra miles into the week to make up for it. Lol

From craptastic to progress

As I posted earlier this week I wasn't going well.  After I did 5x800 on
Thursday things started to pick up. I wasn't super happy with my intervals, but I did them at or under goal pace.  Running to work 2 days gave me a mileage boost.  I hit 60 miles for the week. That's a new high. 

The temporary plan is to actually finish a long run or two next week & bump my mileage up to 65-70ish.  Also a new plan for my tempo runs.  Warming up first.  A novel idea I know but they have always been done with time constraints.  Going to have to plan around that so I can get more quality out of them.  I may hit the track for intervals instead of the bike path.  Will have to see how my days off go.

Run commute day 2

Good run home this am.  Cool enough for long sleeves & gloves.  The lighter load in the pack going home helped too.

When I got home showered & put on my compression stuff. Then hit the foam roller while watching F1 quali & drinking my favorite recovery drink.

What the Hell happened to Kobi? He's got to get his Shit together in quali.  Especially since Perez made Q3.  Though it looks like he may not need to worry about Perez for long.  I'm guessing a couple more bad drives by Massa & his Ferrari seat will be Perez's.  At this rate by the euro races.

Woke up feeling a little worse for wear.  That has become the new norm.  I have to move around for awhile to not shuffle around like I'm 90.  Probably put too much food in my pack.  Weighed it at work, 6.4lbs.  That explains why I struggled running in.  Weighed myself as well.  I'm getting close to my goal weight. Really close. 

Four day run commuting is going to be a challenge.  Will have to build up to it for sure.  I'm liking the extra miles though.  New mileage high this week thanks to commuting.

Run commute

Ran to work again.  Going to go for two straight days.  That will be about 28 miles in 3 days give or take. 

Tonight was nice. 54 degrees not too windy overcast but pretty humid.  Pulled the Camelbak Mule out if moth balls.  It carries loads a little better, plus it makes me nostalgic for AR racing....kinda.

Now to make it through the night & run home.  Hmmm that's a lot like AR racing too.

Please stop raining

My 4 days off have been less than productive.  Pretty much rained non stop.  Parts of the Ozarks are over 10" in the last 4 days.  Years past I would have loaded up & gone boating for 4 days.  Being a family man now that isnt really an option I'd use.  Plus add in the logistics of being a 1 car family.  Needless to say my boats still are covered in dust. No boating for me.

 I logged onto the Arkansas Canoe Club Forum to see what was happening & perhaps grab a ride.  After I figured out my username & password it told me I hadn't logged on since 11/24/2006.  Guess I'm a bit out of the loop.  Time to dust off my boating resume & find some people to boat with I guess.  If you read this & boat get a hold of me.  I'm rusty but have a few skills left.

I've kinda managed to dodge the rain & get in some runs.  I'd title this week of training as craptastic at best.  I ran home Sunday from work which wasn't too bad.  I was running with the knowledge that I had the 2012 F1 opener waiting for me on the DVR, which helped tons.  What was weird was my run time to work was exactly the same as my run time home.  Couldn't do that again if I tried.  Anyway run commuting was successful enough I plan on doing it some more.

Mon afternoon after I woke up went out as soon as I got up to try & stay ahead of the rain.  10 miles later I was dry but tired.  Kind of the beginning of the end of the week before it started.  Tuesday was a tempo run.  My normal tempo run is an out & back. Of course at the turn around it started raining. This did nothing for my motivation or speed.  Plus I had to wait for a damn train.  Not my slowest time but far from what it should have been.

Wednesday was supposed to be a 14 miler.  My legs were crap from the word go.  I almost bailed super early for 4 miles.  I kept my head in it & slogged out 10 miles.  The take away is 2 10 milers in 3 days.  Th e downsides are too many to mention.  The only real positive is that when I hit the driveway it started raining.  Which meant if I had kept at it for the whole 14 I would have had to run at least 4 miles in the rain.  If that happened how I was feeling would have meant a couple miles of walking. Which would have pretty much ate up the last of my moral for the week.

Today I woke up feeling all of my 90 years.  Hobbled around, zero motivation.  Amber went to the gym mid day so I had a reason too postpone running.  I managed to get my shit together enough to run 7 miles with 5x800m with 800m recovery.  Not the track workout I had wanted but still classified as my first "speed" workout of the year.

Watched Free Practice 1 on SpeedTv Streaming.  Not really much to learn besides McLaren is playing to Hamilton's ego setting him up for the fastest time over Vettel.  The Mercedes are fast & I'd be surprised if they didn't get a podium this week.  Bottas stepped in for a drive and out paced Maldando at Williams.  Saw that coming from a mile away.  Lotus is showing some pace.  Grojean was fast once again even with a wheel problem.  Sauber did their normal FP1. Don't be surprised with another double points scoring weekend; they are #3 in the constructors.  Ferrari is a big fat hmmmmm. HRT needs to throw in the helmet already.  I could drive my Volvo around the track faster.

Reasons you suck at racing/training

Ok that is a bit of an exaggeration of a very good blog post but how else was I going to suck you in.

8 Reasons athletes don't achieve success  from Fast at Forty A lot of truth.  I'm guilty of A LOT of the 8 reasons.

Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)

Creative Training

With my work schedule its hard to get a lot of miles in.  I'm kinda maxed out at 50-55 per week.  I've been kicking around the idea of running to work.  This being a transitional week & I'm back on weekends I figured it was time for a test run. 

If it isn't too bad I'm going to try & run commute a couple times per week.  Will give me 7 miles each way.  That should let me bump my mileage up.  I'd like to try a hundred mile week just for the Hell of it.  Haven't done that since college.  110 was my all time max.

I doubled up on the amount of food I brought to work last night so didn't have to lug that.  I did forget to bring an extra set of clothes so had to bring that but those fit in my GoLite running fanny pack.  Next time I'll plan better so I carry less.

Had a pretty good head wind which made the hills at the end of the run hard.  I think I managed around a 7:30 avg.  Will have to wait till I download the file. 

Now the interesting part of the test.  Working all night & then running home.  All the hills are in the 1st half going home so have that going for me. 

My Damn head phones lost sound in one side again.  I don't know why but that is how all my headphones die.  This was a cheap pair & it showed since they barely lasted a month or so.  I've had 4 or 5 pair die this way I'm the last couple of years.

Garmin Connect & Ubuntu 11.10

Sine switching to Linux i have had to make some adjustments.  Garmin doesn't support Linux with their Garmin Connect feature.  Not really a problem since I can manually upload workouts from my Garmin 210.  If I have a bunch stored it becomes a bit of a hassle.

I found a nice little Firefox plugin that works like the regular Garmin plug in.  Andreas Diesner wrote the plugin.  On his website he has great instructions how to use the plugin.  Highly recommended if you use Linux & have a Garmin device.

A funny little bug with the Garmin site while using Linux.  When I use Firefox the note function in calendar doesn't work.  But if I use Chrome to browse the site it works.  Hopefully Andreas writes a Chrome plugin so I don't have to use Firefox at all.

http://www.andreas-diesner.de/garminplugin/doku.php

Too much compression?

Filed under WTF?

I want to see video of this being put on.

transitional week

Yesterday was my first run in 10 days.  Without mincing words it sucked.  I lost a bunch of fitness being sick.  Plus I'm not 100% over it yet.  Still have an annoying cough.  Today though was 100000x better.  Was actually able to cruise with a  7:13avg.  Even dropped 2 miles under 7.

Instead of writing this week off I'm going to call it a transitional week.  No long run just runs to get back in the swing.  Then I'll make the next 3 weeks really hard.  Lots of Fartlek & long tempo runs.  I'll shoot for 3 maybe 4 key workouts per week. My average per mile pace has been steadily dropping.  Hopefully after this month it will be around 7:10 for most runs.

Day 8 & still sick.

Still feeling it a bit.  Now Amber thinks she has it. Alex had to go on steroids today to help his breathing.  Mia only feels good as long as she's on Motrin.  It's her spring break so hopefully she feels better soon.
It's my last night at work for this 4 days.  Hopefully with some good sleep on my days off I can shake this crap.  8 days sick also means I haven't ran in 8 days.  That's alot of fitness lost.  To be safe I also drove to work every night this week.  Can't remember the last time that happen.  Last winter when it got super cold & snowy I think.
Going to try & be smart & not force it this week but its going to be hard when its supposed to be 70 every day I'm off.  I guess I'll not make a plan for this week & play it by ear.

The wheels on the bus fell off & caught on fire

I knew it was going to happen but didn't want to jinx myself.  It happened anyway. IT being getting sick.  Spent all 4 of my days off suffering.  2nd night back at work & feeling a little better but not 100%.  Definately not well enough to ride to work or run yet.  Not the recovery week I had planned.  Had to skip my planned 18 miler Sunday.  That kinda sucked. 
Now both the kids are sick.  Hopefully Amber doesn't get sick.  Or I pick up another bug before getting healthy.  There has been a pretty nasty bug going around at work & Mia's school has strep going around.I need a bubble.
On a positive note being sick has kept me off coffee.  Not a drop since last Friday.  Plus I've been sleeping tons.  Though sick sleep doesn't really count.  I am up 16.5 hrs in SleepBot.  Highest I've seen since starting using the app.  I slept over 9 hrs today.  That has to be a daytime sleep PR for me.  But again sick sleep doesn't count.
Not sure yet what the next 4 week cycle will look like now.  I'm guessing at least a week, maybe 2 will be building back up from being sick.

Today's run worried me a bit

Todays run was a little too easy. Easy in it was too effortless. I even mentioned to Amber when I got home that maybe last week had not been hard enough. I’m too fresh for being 4 days into week 4 of a 4 week training cycle. I should be tired & ready for a rest, not cruising sub 7 min miles like they are nothing.
Looking at my Garmin file is even more interesting. I had to stop for traffic just shy of half way into my run. In 5 secs my HR dropped 15 beats. Yes this is a good thing but it makes me wonder if the extra rest the last two weeks was too much rest. Oh well there is nothing I can do about it now except enjoy it while I can.
Next week is a recovery week then another 4 week cycle of training. Less volume, more intensity & cross training. Still don’t know what I training for besides just training. But like they say racing gets in the way of training anyway. I work the last for days of this recovery week, not optimal. Optimal would be work the 1 st 4 days then off the rest of the week. That way I can focus on my sleep during my work days and start ramping up to training again when I’m off. Oh well got to work with what you have. I am going to schedule a trip to the chiro for a tune up & a massage. I have a few niggles I need to try & get rid of.
I just got done reading Running With the Buffaloes. Been meaning to read it for years but never got around to it. It is about CU’s 1998 cross season. So some of the Seniors names are familiar to me since they were Freshman my Senior year of college. It’s a good book but makes you wonder about the system CU used then. They ended ’98 with a lot of broken runners. But college running is like that. You either get stronger or broken not much middle ground.