Dawt Mill

Camping & float trip

4/26/12 AM bike commute

I have found a lot of stuff over the years while riding & running.  The greenways closest to my house is a gold mine dumping ground.  From furniture, tvs, to a boat..yes a boat. 
This AM I topped it all.  A stripped and obviously stolen Tahoe.  It wasn't far from the road but far enough it was damn well hidden.  It wasn't there when I rode to work so had been there less than 12 hrs.  I called the sheriff.  Waited around a few minutes for them to show &  walked the deputy over to its resting place. 
No finders keepers for this one.  I told him about the area becoming a dumping grounds so hopefully they will patrol a little more.  Especially since its so close to Mia's school.
Skipped running tonight.  I figured an hour extra sleep would be better than junk miles on what has become a recovery week.   Did ride to work pretty hard though.  Hard not to on the CX bike.  It just wants to go fast.

4/24/12 kinda sucked

They say bad things come in 3's.  Got all 3 done in about 13 hrs because I'm an over achiever that way. 
Started out no run day 3.  A mini rest week?  Was night 1 of work so had my normal most productive day of the week. 
#1 Rode into work.  Almost exactly half way flatted my rear tire.  2x in 2 weeks.  I've managed to wear through my rear tire.  Luckily I had a cut up tube for a boot.  Learned this lesson the hard way last year.  Fixed it & on my way.  New commuter tires ordered & in the mail. 
#2 My phone decided that it would no longer like to connect to the interwebs.  I ran through all the Verizon troubleshooting, moved onto the forums.  All to no avail.  After I got home a quick call to Verizon Support & I had to do a factory reset.  Phone back to way I first got it.  All apps gone.  No biggie since Google Play syncs them.  Did loose 2 months worth of SleepBot data which sucks.  Oh well my phone now works & fingers crossed hasn't dropped 4g yet.  Which it hasn't done since the SPR got 4g.
#3 Leaving work broke my damn sunglasses.  Again no great loss.  They were cheapo fake Oakleys I bought last summer to go floating in.Timing is right since we're going floating Sunday, I'll replace them with another cheapo pair.  I tend to get more life out of the cheap ones anyway.
#4 Bonus round.  Mia spent most of night puking.  Amber thought she was getting it too.  Made a run to the store for 7UP, poop stopper, peppermint tums, & crackers.  Luckily by time I got up today everyone was feeling better.
Today got out for a short run before work.  It was hot & I was tired.  Just needed a run to start the week.  Rode my CX bike to work since I don't trust the commuter till I swap tires.  CX bike chopped 5 min off my commute even with me screwing around taking all the CX'y lines.

4/22 & 4/23

Blew off runs both days.  Sunday couldn't get motivated between kid duty.  Monday I got woke up at 2am & couldn't fall back to sleep.  Watched a movie & screwed around trying to set up MediaTomb & XMBC to work with my Direct TV.  Made a start but don't have all the kinks worked out yet.  Mostly because DirectTV 's "mediashare" is crap & only works with a few video formats.  I'm going to break down & invest in a Google TV box or  Roku.

Had an early Dr's appointment Monday AM  to get my yearly Thyroid checkup.  Didn't think it through when I made the appointment & logistics were screwed.  Instead of riding an hour over & an hour back Amber dropped me off, drove back to Mia's school &  dropped her off, then came & got me.  A little too much driving.  Wasted miles & gas I guess.

Amber then had appointments all day so hung out with Alex.  Luckily he took a long nap so I got an hour nap in.  When Amber & Mia got home we had to pack up to go to Nixa to watch my niece's track meet.  Jr. high track is pretty funny.  Highly recommended for the comedic relief.

Ended last week with only 44 miles.  A lot more fatigue than I wanted.  Thus the lack of motivation on Sunday & today.  I figure I'll ride to work every night this week.  Try & hit some intensity running with lower miles.  Going floating Sunday so not much wiggle room there for a long run.

4/19/12 PM run commute & 4/20/12 AM commute

Another slow run to work Thursday night.  Legs tired.  Foam rolled the soreness out but not the fatigue.  Strong headwind didn't help.   Running with a pack is hard & adds to the fatigue exponentially.  Luckily not too hard a night at work.  Lots of unnecessary stress though that I can't discuss.  The mental kind that wears you out.
AM run home started out ok.  The overnight rain stopped but the wind had turned out of the North & the temps dropped a ton.  It dropped another 4 degrees while I was running home to bottom out around 42. 
I left work in shorts & a t-shirt with my super light GoLite jacket stashed within reach.  I made it just past 2 miles or about 2 min after turning into the wind before having to put my jacket on.  Run went downhill from there.  Pace went to crap & motivation with it.
Was beat when I finally got home.  Put a bunch of clothes on to warm up.  Crawled under a blanket on the couch.  8 hours later I woke up still on the couch.  Amber says I slept through her cleaning house, Alex throwing a fit, & my in-laws coming by.  Guess I was really tired because I was out cold. 

4/18/12 AM ride commute PM run commute

Slowww ride home.  Had a hard night at work was pretty tired.  Had trouble falling asleep.  Wasn't helped by finding The Longest Day on the sat.  Seen it a hundred times & never gets old.
Ran to work.  Just set a comfortable pace not looking at my Garmin.  Nothing else really to mention.

4/17/12

AM commute home got a rear flat about 1.5 miles from home.  Rode it to my subdivision (little over a mile) & then walked rest of way.  I figured it would be easier to change at home with the aid of my compressor & beer fridge.
Skipped running before work & rode in.  Gonna run to work next two days.
Local climbing gym has climbing summer camps.  Going to sign Mia up.  I bet she'll love it more than the soccer camp she went to last summer.

Sunday climbing & Monday 800's

Crappy weather weekend for sure.  Rained cats & dogs Sunday.  Took Mia to the downtown ymca to let her climb on their climbing wall.  She started out a little timid.  After a few times on the rope she tried to tell me she's scared of heights.  She was just scared of falling.  Let her swing on the rope & had her drop to the mats to show her its safe.  After that she was off.  I was impressed.  For being not quite 6 & her first time she's not bad.  I see some potential.  Plus she had a ton of fun & wants to go back.
I climbed the wall once then bouldered quite a bit watching Mia.  I got sore pretty fast.  Can't believe I used to be able to climb for hours.  Guess I need to hit the wall more.  Been slacking on the pull ups too.  It showed.
After climbing caught a break in the rain & went out for a quick 5.  Got a little wet but not bad.  Would have liked to go farther but the weather & motivation prevented it.  Couldnt get my thyroid prescription filled till Monday.  Waiting on the Dr. to renew it for a month since I missed my yearly.  Four days off of it & I could tell.  Tired as Hell & no motivation.
Sunday night slept like crap.  Up at 3am.  Watched tv for a couple hours & then went to sleep for a bit on the couch.  Strung enough "naps" together to sleep till noon.  Then had my normal spurt of back to work productivity.  Wish I could be that productive on all my days off.  Got the oil changed in the Volvo & the yard mowed.
After all that snuck in an interval workout.  6x800.  All good times within a sec of each other.  With warm up, recovery & cool down got in just over 10 miles.  Good start to the week. 
Since I ran intervals rode to work.  Probably ride twice this week & run twice.  Maybe stretch out my last night on run home a bit for some mileage padding.  Will have to see how my week goes. 

Webber's F1 Wheelie

Training vs. Racing

Skipped running yesterday.  The 4 hour nap I took told me maybe I was a little tired.  Almost went for a quick run last night but decided it would just be padding & streak chasing.  Got out this AM early, had to cut it short though since the rain was coming in.

Had an interesting thought while I was running.  Amber keeps asking what i'm training for.  Honestly don't know besides training.  That got me thinking about training vs. racing.  I used to be a huge believer in racing yourself into shape.  By shape I mean top end fitness.  Which for me takes about 13 weeks of training first.  Then I could cut back on the miles, be it running or riding, and race myself into top shape.  Now I lean towards racing gets in the way of training.  I like to race but I think I like training more.  Strange I know.

Another thought I had was about doping & training.  Doping has pretty much completely put me off on PRO cycling.  I don't get much enjoyment out of watching it any more since the cloud of doping is always there.  Suspensions are a joke since the suspended rider almost always comes back to racing.  The adaptation is made while on drugs.  You can't take that away from them by suspending them.  I would imagine most suspended riders train & recover.  If I was a suspend PRO racer I'd spend my suspension training huge volumes & focus on recovery for the whole suspension.  Then when I came back I'd have the benefit of the adaptation & racing I made while on the drugs & the benefit of all the quality training I was able to do while suspended.  Sounds crazy but I think this has become common practice.  Look at all the suspended riders that come back & win races straight out of the gate.

I think to remove Doping one of two things has to happen. Automatic life time bans or bans on training while suspended. Give the rider a two year suspension.  Ban training for the first year of the suspension.  The rider couldn't train for a year & would loose most if not all of the adaptation he made while training & racing on his drug of choice.  Then he'd have to train another year to get fit enough to maybe rejoin the peloton.  I'd say that go along way as a deterrent to using drugs.  Since right now a 2 year ban is a licence to train.

Neither of these will happen so PRO cycling will probably end up eating its self.

4/11/12 AM&PM run commutes, Podcasts & the Barkley Marathon

Brrr! It got cold this AM.  Brought a long sleeve beenie, & gloves. Knees got a bit cold though uncovered. 42 degrees is a bit cool for shorts.

Was listening to a podcast that had an interview with Dave Horton. He was talking about finishing the Barkley Marathons 100 miler . A race so hard only 1% finish its 100 miles. That's 13 to date!  Here is a race report by the 13th finisher.  Read it for sure!

Anyway I've been reading a lot of ultrarunner blogs lately. Not sure why but most have cool mountain pix. Last week or so I read mention of the Barkley. It sounded vaguely familiar for some reason.

Back to podcast. Dave mentioned having to rip pages out of a book to prove you have run the right course. Again this sounded really familiar. I ran a bit more and a memory hit me. In 2004 I did a 4 day adventure race called the Beast of The East.  It had an Orienteering section in Frozen Head State Park. I recall JC saying something about a race here blah blah maybe the Barkley?  Don't recall much since this came at day 3+ my mind was shot not to mention fighting the pain in my knee.

This was after the swelling went down some.

Now that I've rambled my point is I've been over a big chunk of the 20 mile loop that makes up the Barkley and all I can say is Screw That.  Some great before & after pix of the Barkley runners. No way i'd put myself through that 60 hours of torture.  I vividly remember the climb out of Frozen Head 8 years later.

Back to my commute.  Run home the watch said 6.66 miles.  Oh that can't be good.   Out of podcasts on the shuffle so go to load it back up & itunes doesn't want to play nice.  I was to tired to fight it & Apple makes me angry to begin with.  So I put the podcasts on the cheapo China shuffle knock off. 
Run to work.  The cheapo China shuffle stops working less than 1.5 miles from home. Craptastic. Oh well enjoy a run with just my thoughts.  Hit the gate at work look at my watch.  6.66 miles.  Uh oh not going for 3 6.66 runs in a row so in AM I'm running a different way home.

** I'm posting this from my phone so I'll clean up later & add some links and a pix of my Beast knee.
*** Obviously I've edited this

4/10/12 AM&PM run commutes

Weird weather going home this AM.  Comfortable, then cold, then comfortable, then cold & drizzle.  Repeated all way home.  Typical Missouri spring.  Though I read the NOAA says March was the warmest on record along with January & February.  I'm not complaining but it is a bit worrisome.
Learned another network oddity this AM as well.  I haven't been able to get my phone to connect to my computer for a week or so.  Been a pain.  Had a moment of clarity.  Checked my IP addie.  Damn it had changed.  Well crap didn't know that was possible but Google says it happens quite frequently.  I guess I need to write a script that checks my IP daily & emails it to me.so I can keep my phone configured correctly.  Learn something new everyday.
PM run was uneventful.  Temp was nice at 65.  Big hill before work kicked my butt though. 

4/9/12 AM bike & PM run commutes

Riding home this AM was a bit chilly.  44ish degrees.  Had to break out some gloves.   It's pretty unusual for me to see people on the greenways near my house in the am.  Today I saw a pretty pissed off looking old dude who gave me the stink eye long after I was by.  I turned & looked because I could feel him stairing.  Strange but I figured out his deal on my run to work. 
I really need to keep my camera/phone at the ready.  I saw I turkey take flight in front of a deer hauling ass into the woods.  Was an awesome sight.  I guess not all the turkeys felt like flying since I followed 2 for about a quarter mile running down the center of the greenways.  This section is heavily wooded on both sides so not sure what they were thinking.  It made me laugh. 
This section has become a dumping grounds of sort.  Some furniture a truck bed liner random trash & a boat.  Yes a boat.  An old inboard missing the motor & lower unit.  Funny thing is it keeps moving.  I'm guessing its kids or the meth heads who are steadily burning off the dozer piles.
Anyway yesterday I noticed someone had dumped a bunch of used lumber.  Stopped & checked on it.  Was worth driving to get.  Have some good useable recycled lumber now for a project to be named later.
Ran into work tonight.  70 degrees & blue skys had the greenways pretty busy for this section.  Nothing else special just an easy run in.  Going to be a bit chilly running home in the am.
Almost forgot about stink eye dude.  He was a contractor.  A lot of work went on today while I was sleeping.  They started pouring the concrete for the path to connect the bridge that goes over Wilsons toward Rutlidge.  No more dirt path.  They also fixed several sections of pavement on the new part of the greenways.  Not sure why since there was nothing wrong with it.  Looks like they just made the trail more level side to side.

Why is this a story on Cyclingnews?

Armstrong visits Paris-Roubaix

Who gives a Shit?  Cyclingsnooze just got dumped from my RSS feed.

4/8/12

Low key Easter for me since I go back to work tonight.  Slept in & watched DVR'd "live" Roubaix coverage from NBC Sports.  Cool channel glad Directtv added it to line up.  I guess the repeat coverage is 3 hrs long instead of the 1.5 hr Live coverage.  Set the DVR again since Arrenburg forest is always cool.  Good race.  Boonen TT off the front was impressive.  Glad Balan got nipped at the line.  He just needs to go away.  Phinney had a great debut in 15th. Wish Hincapie would have been with him but he finished for the 50th time.

Mowed the yard again.  Glad it was cooler today since I hate mowing & hate mowing in the heat even more.

Kept April perfect with an 8 mile & change run.  Felt really good avg 7:05/mi.  I was surprised after yesterday's horid run.  That makes 65 for the week. 

5x800

Drug ass all day yesterday & almost bailed on running.  Plan was to.ride over to the track to run 800's.  Probably why I screwed around all day putting it off. Finally I took a nap & rallied enough to run to the greenways for 800's.  Glad I did.  Avg 2:46 for them.  Recovery was jog back 800.  Wanted to do 6 but pulled the plug at 5 when my recovery doubled the interval.  Still ended up with 8.5 miles for the whole workout. 
Schedule conflicts had me up at 530 am to run this AM.  Nothing special but cut run short when at 4 miles felt like I was going to Puke.  Ran back home slow still not sure why I got nauseous.  Oh well done & still perfect for April though a little behind on miles.

4/3/12

Had a good run home from work this am.  Felt good which was surprising since I had a long hard night at work.  Set a few "pr's".  Fastest run home by 2 min or so.  Fastest run commute time am or pm by 45 sec or so. 

My run tonight I figured would be a death march but not that bad.  I think the temp being 77 helped. 

Once I got to work, cleaned up, showered & dressed out I noticed my boots were tighter than normal.  My feet had swollen some.  I guess if I'm going to run to/from work & wear steel toes all night I need to be wearing compression socks.

This poses a bit of a problem since arc flash rules say everything worn under arc flash clothes has to be mostly cotton.  Less melting that way if I catch on fire. It's happened to me more than once so I stick to this rule.  Luckily there are several brands of compression socks with 80%+ cotton.  That should keep me legal & safe plus make my legs feel better.

Hot run commute

I drove into work last night so I could bring food in so I wouldn't have to run with it.  May have over done it a little.  Oh well too much food at work is better than to little.  I also took the opportunity to bring home the old school push mower that a coworker gave me.  Going to try and convert it to a bicycle powered ride on mower.

Since driving gets me home a little earlier than running or biking I finished up another little project.  I got my garage "server" another step closer to being an actual server.  I can now control torrents on it via my phone.  I could already do it on my main computer but it has to stay on all the time.  I have now taught myself some more networking skills.  I also fixed my home network file sharing problem.  I thought I found the fix for the Ubuntu bug that makes certain network drivers run at 10mbs. But alas no back to the Google. 

Tonights run to work was probably the hottest run this year so far.  85 degrees is warm when your not used to it.  I sucked down almost an entire water bottle in 6 miles. 

I'm really starting to like run commuting.  Besides the logistics being a pain in the ass it a time saver for sure.  The route to work has 2 big hills so getting my hill work in.  There is also the two a days benefit.  Not sure how far into summer I'll keep it up.  Don't want to be running to work in 100 degree weather.

Run Commute PM & AM Greenways Wildlife

Little warm running into work last night. 80 degrees makes it a bit warm carry a pack.  Ran in slow & easy.  Strangely I got a side stitch less than a quarter mile from work.  It was so painful I stopped & walked what little was left.

This AM was perfect.  60 degrees a little fog along Wilson's on the Greenways.  Lots of wildlife out this am.  First snake sighting of the year.  April 1 & a snake.  That doesn't bode well for me since I can't stand snakes.  I'm pretty terrified of them.  A pretty good sized garter snake.  Had to go with a stock photo because when I saw it the pace picked up dramatically.

Saw a big old snapper on the Greenways too.  He was an old guy too, probably weighed 15-20 lbs.

Just before leaving the trails I had a turkey take to the air in front of me.  That gave me 3 good starts.  

Going to haul a bunch of food to work tonight so I can run in the next two nights.  Two run commutes will give me a nice mileage jump on the week.  I need it since last week was all over the place.  It wasn't helped with two days off either.