So it's taper/recovery week. I feel pretty good about finishing up my first build block. Although I had some issues with my last two long rides, so I'm not super happy about that. Two weeks ago I was thwarted by the weather, and then a polo tournament and didn't end up getting the whole allotted time in. Then came this weekend. After my great long run Saturday, I was excited for my Easter morning long ride. I had planned two laps around canandaigua lake. I was hoping I could get it all in in the 5:30 that I was scheduled to ride. I started off around 8am, and the weather was nice, things were a bit damp, but it was at least fairly warm. I made my way from my parent's house down to east lake road, so I could hit the climb over bare hill, and up out of vine valley, before heading down to naples, and back up the west side of the lake. I made it to just before the climb up bare hill and it started to rain. It wasn't too bad though. I was warm, and determined to press on no matter what! I felt great on those first two climbs, and felt like I tore down to naples pretty quickly. I pressed up the big climb out of naples (I'm going to be seeing this route a lot considering the profile of the placid course) and was still feeling really good. I made my way up west lake road, and over a couple smaller climbs there, and made it back to my parents' house to refill on nutrition and head out again. I hit the ~54 mile halfway point at 2:50ish. A little behind schedule. In light of this, I thought it would be a good idea to take the route to naples skirting the climbs, but still about the same distance, to free up some extra minutes. I made it a few miles from my parent's house, and head a terrible noise. Thwop, thwop thwop thwop. Hmmmmm, oh look my tire's flat. Crap. I get it changed out with the replacement tube in, and find that the stem is too short, I can get the pump over it, but it wont seal, so I can't inflate it enough. Crap. I hitched a ride back to my parent's house feeling pretty defeated. What's the silver lining you ask? It stopped raining. Three hours of chilly wetness, and it decides to give up when I have to call it quits. Damn mother nature, she's a jerk. I got home and texted Mary, to ask her if I should add some time to my t-run to compensate. She's awesome, easter morning, and she still got back to me! She said no, just do what I was scheduled for, so Amanda accompanied me on a 30 minute run.
In other news, we officially booked Dinosaur BBQ for our wedding food! I'm pretty pumped about it! Amanda called last night, and the lady was super nice. So we officially can feed our guests! Since she finished up with classes, she's been doing a lot of wedding planning work too. With the food taken care of, we finally have all the big stuff covered. All that's left are the smaller detail stuff. She's found tons of really cool little favor and decoration stuff to make just to put the finishing touches on. She's amazing, she keeps finding bike themed stuff for me that fits into the whole vintagy barn/picnic aesthetic that she has going so far.
With not a whole lot left to cover, I'm starting to think about coming up with an itinerary for the honeymoon. We're doing 2 days in Toronto, 3 days in Amsterdam, and 5 days in Paris. Amanda really wanted to go to Amsterdam, she mostly just wants to visit the Van Gogh museum there; so I have to come up with some other things to do there. Then on to Paris! I've been wanting to get back there for the past like 8 years! I'm really excited about it. I just finished reading a book called The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz. He's a pastry chef that's been living there for the past 6 years. It was a really funny look into Parisian culture through the eyes of someone trying to fit into it. I definitely recommend it. Plus there's some pretty cool recipes at the end up each chapter, and a list of all his favorite chocolate, and pastry shops n the back. We will definitely be visiting some of these in our time there!
89 days to IMLP!
95 days to the wedding!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Long Run Success!
Just popping in for a quick update. I've been a little negligent about it lately. Just finished up my 2hr long run. It was great! The weather was great (who knew Rochester still had a sun?), and I felt great. I ended up at exactly 15 miles after two hours. A funny thing happened. I passed 13.1 in 1:44 averaging zone 2. For a little background, in a week it will be one year since I ran my first half. I crossed the line for that in 1:49, and was pretty certain that I was going to die. Today I cruised through feeling awesome. Everything just felt like it clicked today. I was feeling the zone 2 effort pretty well. I ran mostly by feel. Mary's been pushing that lately, and it's working. Every time I've gone out, and not obsessively checked my watch, my HR has been more consistent, and my paces have just fallen in where they need to be.
Next weekend is my first multisport race of the year! I'm beyond pumped! I want to just get out there and rip it up! So if you're not doing anything come check out the river challenge du! It's part of the flower city challenge weekend, and it's a great event. If you volunteered, that would be even better! Just make sure that you cheer extra loud for me. I'll be following up the du with the half marathon on sunday, then probably sleeping the rest of that afternoon. After, of course cheering on Amanda as she rocks her second half, and then probably feasting on waffles at Jay's Diner. Sounds like it's going to be a great weekend to me, so come on out!
That's all I have for now.
92 days to go!
Next weekend is my first multisport race of the year! I'm beyond pumped! I want to just get out there and rip it up! So if you're not doing anything come check out the river challenge du! It's part of the flower city challenge weekend, and it's a great event. If you volunteered, that would be even better! Just make sure that you cheer extra loud for me. I'll be following up the du with the half marathon on sunday, then probably sleeping the rest of that afternoon. After, of course cheering on Amanda as she rocks her second half, and then probably feasting on waffles at Jay's Diner. Sounds like it's going to be a great weekend to me, so come on out!
That's all I have for now.
92 days to go!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Spring Forward and Bike Fit
Well, it's been another busy week. But I need to cover my quick race report from Spring Forward last weekend, and talk about my awesome bike fit down in Geneva!
I was the only team member going into spring forward rested. I just came off of a recovery week, and everyone else was in their blocks. I got there about 45 minutes early, grabbed my timing chip, had Amanda pin my number, and started getting ready to go. I was excited! With 30min to the start I went out for a short warm-up, just to get my legs moving, and loosened up. I didn't make it far before I ran into Mary and Kim on their mountain bikes. They were talking to Don while he did his hardcore car warm up. After chatting for a bit I put in mile or so easy, then headed back to Amanda to get ready for the start. We headed over towards the start line and joined up with the rest of the Train-this group. We all got to hear about Alexa's issues, and her awesome gel pocket in her shorts. The race plan from Mary was pretty similar to the Johnny's plan. Take out the first half at a good effort pace, but she wanted us to hit the 4.5 mile mark ready to pick it up for the second half. I'm pretty sure not many of us were really able to do this. I started off well. Alexa and I had to do some offroading, because we started further back than we should have. Just a quick note here, if you're running a race please don't line up in the front and proceed to walk. In the future, I will be lining up much closer to the front. It didn't take too long to find some space, and I spotted Tim up ahead. I decided that I didn't want to spend all day chasing him, like I did at Johnny's, so I decided to get up with him. We ran pretty much together for a while in the first 5k. He was having some trouble with the hills, and I ended up pulling away. I was happy with my ability to pretty consistently pick off people ahead of me on the climbs. I have some trouble picking it up on the downhill though. It was enough to not really get caught though.
I saw Mary and Kim at about halfway. They gave me a big cheer, and it put some extra kick in my step. I was feeling great. I picked it up for a while, like the race plan called for. But, the back half of that course has hills. It's definitely hillier than the first half. I knew at that point that I probably wasn't going to negative split. So I just decided to push it as hard as I could, and at least maintain the pace I set the first half. At this point the field was spread enough that I wasn't consistently picking people up as I was before, but I felt like I was closing distance on them. I came to the 10k mark, and I was starting to feel the race in my legs a bit, but I knew the biggest climbs were behind me, I just had to keep pushing. Mary and Kim came by again on their bikes about as I came to the lat water station. There was a girl a little way up, and she yelled something about not getting chicked. I didn't actually hear her, but I saw her point, and the look on her face was all it took to get me to kick it up a notch. Scary! I came up on a small group as we neared the park, and we really started racing. Again, I gained ground on the climbs, but gave up a little on the descents. Luckily there's a decent climb from the last turn towards the finish, and I had enough kick to hold my spot on the last little downhill to the finish. I crossed in 1:02:45, which put me at about the same pace I held for Johnny's over almost twice the distance. I was really happy. Especially considering where I was last year with my running. I'm really getting to the point where I'm enjoying it. I'm sick of giving up places on the run, I can't watit to see how the season shapes up!
Monday I had a crazy day! I did my tutoring hours in the morning, went to class 12-1, then basically ran to my car, and changed while driving to make my bike fit appointment appointment in Geneva at 2. RIT -> Geneva transit time: 50 minutes, pretty darn good! The bike fit was amazing. Chad was great. Geneva definitely gained a customer for life there. He went through my flexibility and such, and apparently for a guy I had good flexibility, and no other issues to consider for the fitting. My seat got moved forward, and up. My cockpit was too low too. He tried to just add spacers to pick up the armrests, but didn't have long enough machine screws to run all the way through 25mm of spacers, and my basebar. So we ended up fitting a new stem. Same length, more angle, pulled my front end up and back a little. He also tweaked my cleats a little bit. The end result was amazing. I feel like I could live in the aero position now. I'm more comfortable, and just as aero, and excited to see how it feels on the road.
I'm finishing up with my powerlab teaching (a two day lab marathon for people who can't fit the regular weekly schedule), and have a two hour run on tap for later today. Tomorrow I have a 4ish hour ride that I'm going to do with Mary, and some others. It should be fun! That'll be the longest I've been out on the road in a long long time. It's supposed to be like mid 60s! It'll pretty much be amazing. Period. Well that's all I have for now.
106 days to go! (this means I should check in next Friday for the 100 day celebration!)
I was the only team member going into spring forward rested. I just came off of a recovery week, and everyone else was in their blocks. I got there about 45 minutes early, grabbed my timing chip, had Amanda pin my number, and started getting ready to go. I was excited! With 30min to the start I went out for a short warm-up, just to get my legs moving, and loosened up. I didn't make it far before I ran into Mary and Kim on their mountain bikes. They were talking to Don while he did his hardcore car warm up. After chatting for a bit I put in mile or so easy, then headed back to Amanda to get ready for the start. We headed over towards the start line and joined up with the rest of the Train-this group. We all got to hear about Alexa's issues, and her awesome gel pocket in her shorts. The race plan from Mary was pretty similar to the Johnny's plan. Take out the first half at a good effort pace, but she wanted us to hit the 4.5 mile mark ready to pick it up for the second half. I'm pretty sure not many of us were really able to do this. I started off well. Alexa and I had to do some offroading, because we started further back than we should have. Just a quick note here, if you're running a race please don't line up in the front and proceed to walk. In the future, I will be lining up much closer to the front. It didn't take too long to find some space, and I spotted Tim up ahead. I decided that I didn't want to spend all day chasing him, like I did at Johnny's, so I decided to get up with him. We ran pretty much together for a while in the first 5k. He was having some trouble with the hills, and I ended up pulling away. I was happy with my ability to pretty consistently pick off people ahead of me on the climbs. I have some trouble picking it up on the downhill though. It was enough to not really get caught though.
I saw Mary and Kim at about halfway. They gave me a big cheer, and it put some extra kick in my step. I was feeling great. I picked it up for a while, like the race plan called for. But, the back half of that course has hills. It's definitely hillier than the first half. I knew at that point that I probably wasn't going to negative split. So I just decided to push it as hard as I could, and at least maintain the pace I set the first half. At this point the field was spread enough that I wasn't consistently picking people up as I was before, but I felt like I was closing distance on them. I came to the 10k mark, and I was starting to feel the race in my legs a bit, but I knew the biggest climbs were behind me, I just had to keep pushing. Mary and Kim came by again on their bikes about as I came to the lat water station. There was a girl a little way up, and she yelled something about not getting chicked. I didn't actually hear her, but I saw her point, and the look on her face was all it took to get me to kick it up a notch. Scary! I came up on a small group as we neared the park, and we really started racing. Again, I gained ground on the climbs, but gave up a little on the descents. Luckily there's a decent climb from the last turn towards the finish, and I had enough kick to hold my spot on the last little downhill to the finish. I crossed in 1:02:45, which put me at about the same pace I held for Johnny's over almost twice the distance. I was really happy. Especially considering where I was last year with my running. I'm really getting to the point where I'm enjoying it. I'm sick of giving up places on the run, I can't watit to see how the season shapes up!
Monday I had a crazy day! I did my tutoring hours in the morning, went to class 12-1, then basically ran to my car, and changed while driving to make my bike fit appointment appointment in Geneva at 2. RIT -> Geneva transit time: 50 minutes, pretty darn good! The bike fit was amazing. Chad was great. Geneva definitely gained a customer for life there. He went through my flexibility and such, and apparently for a guy I had good flexibility, and no other issues to consider for the fitting. My seat got moved forward, and up. My cockpit was too low too. He tried to just add spacers to pick up the armrests, but didn't have long enough machine screws to run all the way through 25mm of spacers, and my basebar. So we ended up fitting a new stem. Same length, more angle, pulled my front end up and back a little. He also tweaked my cleats a little bit. The end result was amazing. I feel like I could live in the aero position now. I'm more comfortable, and just as aero, and excited to see how it feels on the road.
I'm finishing up with my powerlab teaching (a two day lab marathon for people who can't fit the regular weekly schedule), and have a two hour run on tap for later today. Tomorrow I have a 4ish hour ride that I'm going to do with Mary, and some others. It should be fun! That'll be the longest I've been out on the road in a long long time. It's supposed to be like mid 60s! It'll pretty much be amazing. Period. Well that's all I have for now.
106 days to go! (this means I should check in next Friday for the 100 day celebration!)
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Relief!
Finally, I'm relieved to know what I'm going to be doing next year (beside of course training my butt off!). Today I received my acceptance to the UB Chemistry PhD program! I'm pretty excited, they have more professors working in inorganic chemistry than most schools, so I'll have a lot of options as to projects I can work on. One that I'm interested in is making nanoparticles for use as MRI contrast agents. I've been working on a little side project for a guy at Ceders-Sinai making some nanotubes for that use, and I've found myself wanting to dig a little deeper into it. We'll see I guess. So that's a weight lifted off my shoulders. Amanda is taking me out to dinner tonight to celebrate! Though, this means a little bit of workout shuffling. Other than that, I'm trying to make some slow progress with my thesis. Another bit of good news is that I'm going to be able to teach for the first half of the summer, so I'll still have a paycheck then! It's funny how things have a way of all coming together to work out. So now my personal life checklist consists of finding an affordable apartment in Buffalo, that's easy to get to UB from, allows dogs (Preston will be living with me), and is easy enough to run/bike from. Hopefully I can find somewhere that fulfills all those criteria. If anyone knows the Buffalo area, and good places to run/bike, I'd love to hear them!
Unfortunately school in Buffalo means that I won't be seeing Amanda every day, which sucks. She's going to be beginning her Grad program at the Warner School at U of R. She's really excited about it! What a way to start a marriage though, having to move to places an hour apart. I know that it'll be a struggle at times, but I'm sure that it'll be fine. In the end it's worth accepting a little bit of time geographically separated for us both to be able to do what we really want to do. She's trying to get a graduate assistant ship in res life so she has free housing, or otherwise she may move in with a friend of hers if she can. The other con will be limited water polo. There's a Niagara Falls Club, but they're pretty bad, and I'll have enough on my plate with tri training, and PhD studies. So I may limit my polo playing to coming back for tournaments and scrimmages.
On to training! Things have been going well! I'm loving seeing the improvements that I'm making every day. This really hit home from me on Sunday. I met some of the team in Pittsford for a group long run. We all started out kind of together, but I ended up running with Turbeau. That kid is quick. I was proud that I was able to stick with him through it. It's almost surreal running along at an endurance pace that's faster than I was running for 5ks last year. Then kicking it up a notch for the last 30 tempo sub 7min/mile. That's crazy fast to me. It just continues to excite me for the season ahead! Last week I struggled some with my bike rides, I just mentally didn't have it. I suffered through every minute, even though it wasn't anything tough. Then things turned around Thursday. I went for a short, easy ride around the block, and I felt amazing! I then rode my bike to and from school Friday, in addition to my actual bike ride workout. Those rides completely rejuvenated me, and I rocked my long ride Saturday. All along I've kind of hoped that I could do Placid in around 11 hours. This was kind of a best case wish. Sunday as we're heading back to the cars after the long run Mary tells me she thinks I can definitely go under 11. Lets hope!
After the long run Sunday the team met at Bruggers in Pittsford to hang out and get a group picture (because Mary now writes for Xtri.com, find her first official column here!) I also had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of my teammates! The ones I got to talk with the most were Mark (who has to be one of the nicest guys I've ever met, so check out his blog), and Kim (also known as pregnant Kim or kimword Kim, who is hilarious, and she and her husband, another one of the nicest guys I've ever met, are swimmers. So plus 10 cool points to them!). We also got our awesome new visors, and water bottles! We're definitely going to be representing Train-this out there with all this awesome gear!
That's all I have for now! Off to pick up Amanda and get some yummy chinese food from Bamboo House!
123 Days to go!
Unfortunately school in Buffalo means that I won't be seeing Amanda every day, which sucks. She's going to be beginning her Grad program at the Warner School at U of R. She's really excited about it! What a way to start a marriage though, having to move to places an hour apart. I know that it'll be a struggle at times, but I'm sure that it'll be fine. In the end it's worth accepting a little bit of time geographically separated for us both to be able to do what we really want to do. She's trying to get a graduate assistant ship in res life so she has free housing, or otherwise she may move in with a friend of hers if she can. The other con will be limited water polo. There's a Niagara Falls Club, but they're pretty bad, and I'll have enough on my plate with tri training, and PhD studies. So I may limit my polo playing to coming back for tournaments and scrimmages.
On to training! Things have been going well! I'm loving seeing the improvements that I'm making every day. This really hit home from me on Sunday. I met some of the team in Pittsford for a group long run. We all started out kind of together, but I ended up running with Turbeau. That kid is quick. I was proud that I was able to stick with him through it. It's almost surreal running along at an endurance pace that's faster than I was running for 5ks last year. Then kicking it up a notch for the last 30 tempo sub 7min/mile. That's crazy fast to me. It just continues to excite me for the season ahead! Last week I struggled some with my bike rides, I just mentally didn't have it. I suffered through every minute, even though it wasn't anything tough. Then things turned around Thursday. I went for a short, easy ride around the block, and I felt amazing! I then rode my bike to and from school Friday, in addition to my actual bike ride workout. Those rides completely rejuvenated me, and I rocked my long ride Saturday. All along I've kind of hoped that I could do Placid in around 11 hours. This was kind of a best case wish. Sunday as we're heading back to the cars after the long run Mary tells me she thinks I can definitely go under 11. Lets hope!
After the long run Sunday the team met at Bruggers in Pittsford to hang out and get a group picture (because Mary now writes for Xtri.com, find her first official column here!) I also had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of my teammates! The ones I got to talk with the most were Mark (who has to be one of the nicest guys I've ever met, so check out his blog), and Kim (also known as pregnant Kim or kimword Kim, who is hilarious, and she and her husband, another one of the nicest guys I've ever met, are swimmers. So plus 10 cool points to them!). We also got our awesome new visors, and water bottles! We're definitely going to be representing Train-this out there with all this awesome gear!
That's all I have for now! Off to pick up Amanda and get some yummy chinese food from Bamboo House!
123 Days to go!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Johnny's 5 miler
I was excited all week for Johnny's Runnin' of the Green today, and I'm happy to say that everything panned out well! I've never written a race report before, but I think now's a good time to start.
My parents arrived at our apartment at about 9:40 (I have awesome parents, and they try to make it to as many of my events as they can!). We decided to take only one care, they said they didn't mind waiting for my second lap through the course, which made me happy. It's always nice to not have to drive yourself home after a race.
The race plan given by Mary was to run the first mile hard, but at a sustainable pace, then run the rest at that pace +/- 10 seconds.
We arrived at the start about 35 minutes early, and I found Mary, and Alexa and the rest of the team. We all went out for a quick warm up run, and Mary made fun of me for wearing pants, and arm warmers, and a second shirt, but was comforted to learn that I was planning on running in shorts. I had expected it to be cooler than it was, and was thinking that I may need my arm warmers, and hat, but after the warm-up, I decided I definitely didn't. I went to line up for the start, and was pretty near the front. I found Amanda and wished her luck, then tried to get closer to the front. Didn't work. Everyone that was along the side was pushed in towards the front, pushing me back. Oh well. The gun went off, and I stood still. Finally everything started moving, and I started my watch as I actually crossed the line. I worked my way through the first mile as well as I could, but it wasn't easy. Everything cleared up a lot towards Ford St, and I hit my stride really well. I actually had to force myself to dial it back, when I felt like I was pushing it too hard. I crossed mile one with a pace around 6:40 (btw, that's not much slower than my 5k PR pace, so something in this training is definitely working!). So my pace for the race would be 6:30-6:50.
For the most part, I felt really strong, and fell into a good rhythm. I was able to catch myself when I was pushing it trying to race a little too much and settle back into my pace. I also did really well not checking my watch (this is normally a compulsion for me, so you should be impressed). I saw Turbeau heading back as I passed the U of R football field, and gave him a little cheer. He doesn't really know me, and was definitely in the zone, so he didn't seem to notice. I hit the turn and felt amazing, and used the downhill to pick up a little free speed. A little while later I passed Alexa heading up, and gave her a cheer, she looked really good. Then I saw Mary, and cheered for her (I like cheering!).
At that point I started looking for Amanda. She's been working hard getting ready for this race, and has been doing really well. She also had some pretty big goals, she wanted to go under 45 minutes, which is huge for her. I saw her as I passed by the football field again, and gave her a big smile and cheer. She looked great, really really strong, and she called out to me that so far she was averaging 8:40s. That made me really happy, and put some more pep in my step as I refocused on the finishing miles. Checking my watch at each mile, I was happy to see that I wasn't straying too far from my pace range. I just felt in the zone, and I'm hoping that becomes a familiar feeling as the season goes on.
One thing that I'm really happy about is that besides being out kicked in the last few feet by some kid with super long legs, no one passed me after mile 2. I usually take things out a little too fast, and end up slowing and getting reeled in towards the end.
I was happy to get a good cheer from the fleet feet crew (Thanks Ellen and Shawn!) as I passed by Corn Hill Landing, and started picking up the pace for a strong finish. I saw my parents jsut before the finish and gave them as big a smile as I could as I passed. I ended up crossing the line at an official time of 33:21, and a watch time of 33:04. Good for an average pace around 6:40s. It was good for an overall place of 100, and an age group place of 12. Which is great for me in running races. I'm not the strongest runner, but I'm getting there!
I went back and found my parents, and began looking for my friends, and Amanda to come through. I kept looking back at the clock, and then as far down the road as I could see trying to spot her. The minutes passed 41 minutes, and I started getting nervous. I could see way up the street, and I hadn't seen her coming yet. Then I noticed her, she had unzipped her jacket, and hidden behind someone! She came through 42:48 for an 8:34 pace! I was so proud of her! I went and congratulated her, and we went and found my parents again.
I started to look around for the rest of my team to head back out for our second lap. I couldn't find them though, I eventually gave up, and started off on my own. I'm really bad at finding people in crowds. I finally saw them just before the turn around. I ran back nice and steady. I didn't really look at my watch at all, and as a consequence, I pushed it maybe a little harder than I should have. I think a lot of it is a consequence of racing, the cool down pace just felt so amazingly slow, that I had trouble maintaining it.
All in all, it was a very successful day! After the race my parents took us out for lunch (free meals are always welcome!) and we headed to Webster, because we found out that an adoptable dog that we have thought about looking at was at the Pet Smart there. She was so cute!!!! If she's still available after we find out exxactly what our grad school plans, and housing situation will be next year, we're definitely getting her. Preston needs a sister/friend. Plus, how awesome would it be for both of us to take our doggies for runs this summer? Amazingly awesome. That's all I have for today. I'm quite proud of myself, and super proud of Amanda!
134 days to go!
My parents arrived at our apartment at about 9:40 (I have awesome parents, and they try to make it to as many of my events as they can!). We decided to take only one care, they said they didn't mind waiting for my second lap through the course, which made me happy. It's always nice to not have to drive yourself home after a race.
The race plan given by Mary was to run the first mile hard, but at a sustainable pace, then run the rest at that pace +/- 10 seconds.
We arrived at the start about 35 minutes early, and I found Mary, and Alexa and the rest of the team. We all went out for a quick warm up run, and Mary made fun of me for wearing pants, and arm warmers, and a second shirt, but was comforted to learn that I was planning on running in shorts. I had expected it to be cooler than it was, and was thinking that I may need my arm warmers, and hat, but after the warm-up, I decided I definitely didn't. I went to line up for the start, and was pretty near the front. I found Amanda and wished her luck, then tried to get closer to the front. Didn't work. Everyone that was along the side was pushed in towards the front, pushing me back. Oh well. The gun went off, and I stood still. Finally everything started moving, and I started my watch as I actually crossed the line. I worked my way through the first mile as well as I could, but it wasn't easy. Everything cleared up a lot towards Ford St, and I hit my stride really well. I actually had to force myself to dial it back, when I felt like I was pushing it too hard. I crossed mile one with a pace around 6:40 (btw, that's not much slower than my 5k PR pace, so something in this training is definitely working!). So my pace for the race would be 6:30-6:50.
For the most part, I felt really strong, and fell into a good rhythm. I was able to catch myself when I was pushing it trying to race a little too much and settle back into my pace. I also did really well not checking my watch (this is normally a compulsion for me, so you should be impressed). I saw Turbeau heading back as I passed the U of R football field, and gave him a little cheer. He doesn't really know me, and was definitely in the zone, so he didn't seem to notice. I hit the turn and felt amazing, and used the downhill to pick up a little free speed. A little while later I passed Alexa heading up, and gave her a cheer, she looked really good. Then I saw Mary, and cheered for her (I like cheering!).
At that point I started looking for Amanda. She's been working hard getting ready for this race, and has been doing really well. She also had some pretty big goals, she wanted to go under 45 minutes, which is huge for her. I saw her as I passed by the football field again, and gave her a big smile and cheer. She looked great, really really strong, and she called out to me that so far she was averaging 8:40s. That made me really happy, and put some more pep in my step as I refocused on the finishing miles. Checking my watch at each mile, I was happy to see that I wasn't straying too far from my pace range. I just felt in the zone, and I'm hoping that becomes a familiar feeling as the season goes on.
One thing that I'm really happy about is that besides being out kicked in the last few feet by some kid with super long legs, no one passed me after mile 2. I usually take things out a little too fast, and end up slowing and getting reeled in towards the end.
I was happy to get a good cheer from the fleet feet crew (Thanks Ellen and Shawn!) as I passed by Corn Hill Landing, and started picking up the pace for a strong finish. I saw my parents jsut before the finish and gave them as big a smile as I could as I passed. I ended up crossing the line at an official time of 33:21, and a watch time of 33:04. Good for an average pace around 6:40s. It was good for an overall place of 100, and an age group place of 12. Which is great for me in running races. I'm not the strongest runner, but I'm getting there!
I went back and found my parents, and began looking for my friends, and Amanda to come through. I kept looking back at the clock, and then as far down the road as I could see trying to spot her. The minutes passed 41 minutes, and I started getting nervous. I could see way up the street, and I hadn't seen her coming yet. Then I noticed her, she had unzipped her jacket, and hidden behind someone! She came through 42:48 for an 8:34 pace! I was so proud of her! I went and congratulated her, and we went and found my parents again.
I started to look around for the rest of my team to head back out for our second lap. I couldn't find them though, I eventually gave up, and started off on my own. I'm really bad at finding people in crowds. I finally saw them just before the turn around. I ran back nice and steady. I didn't really look at my watch at all, and as a consequence, I pushed it maybe a little harder than I should have. I think a lot of it is a consequence of racing, the cool down pace just felt so amazingly slow, that I had trouble maintaining it.
All in all, it was a very successful day! After the race my parents took us out for lunch (free meals are always welcome!) and we headed to Webster, because we found out that an adoptable dog that we have thought about looking at was at the Pet Smart there. She was so cute!!!! If she's still available after we find out exxactly what our grad school plans, and housing situation will be next year, we're definitely getting her. Preston needs a sister/friend. Plus, how awesome would it be for both of us to take our doggies for runs this summer? Amazingly awesome. That's all I have for today. I'm quite proud of myself, and super proud of Amanda!
134 days to go!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Thursday night update-o-rama!
I'm pumped for Johnny's on Saturday. Lately I feel like I've been hitting my training pretty well. I'm feeling faster on the run and the bike. The pool is a bit different. I'm not disappointed with where I am, I'm just having trouble often feeling the water properly. I've noticed that my stroke has changed some. I can tell that my elbows are consistently higher, and I feel good when my form is good. But when I start to get tired, the mechanics start to slide, and these are the time I really feel things slipping. It just feels like I have no traction, it's the swimming equivalent of walking on ice if that makes any sense. This was my first week of tempo! I'm pretty excited for the rest of this block. I'm pretty happy with my first tempo bike ride. I felt strong, I felt fast. I'm proud of being able to maintain the best effort intervals. I'm excited to go fast! I'm excited for what's ahead, and to see just what I can do.
On the real life front, it's the beginning of a new quarter. I'm back to teaching Gen. Chem. Labs, which is a bit of a bummer, I prefer organic. But on the bright side, I only have to teach one section during the week, and then the power lab section (two straight days for those who couldn't schedule a regular time). Also, I'm glad I only have to do two tutoring hours. This should leave me quite a bit of time to work on my research, and really get things wrapped up. There's just a couple small obstacles I have to overcome, but from there it should be easy to wrap up. I'm also excited for the rest of the only course I'm taking. It's all about photochemistry, and the interaction of matter with light. It's the stuff that really interests me, and stuff that I'd like to do more work with in the future. Finally, a class that I really really want to take!
That's about all I have for now. I'm looking forward to seeing all the TTers that are going to be at Johnny's Saturday. The "pub crawl" as Mary calls it (not a pub crawl at all) involves running the course a second time after we finish the race. I'm hoping we get to wait a few minutes at least before we head back out, because I'd like to see Amanda finish. I know she's going to do great. Well that's all that I have for now. Bedtime!
136 Days to go!
On the real life front, it's the beginning of a new quarter. I'm back to teaching Gen. Chem. Labs, which is a bit of a bummer, I prefer organic. But on the bright side, I only have to teach one section during the week, and then the power lab section (two straight days for those who couldn't schedule a regular time). Also, I'm glad I only have to do two tutoring hours. This should leave me quite a bit of time to work on my research, and really get things wrapped up. There's just a couple small obstacles I have to overcome, but from there it should be easy to wrap up. I'm also excited for the rest of the only course I'm taking. It's all about photochemistry, and the interaction of matter with light. It's the stuff that really interests me, and stuff that I'd like to do more work with in the future. Finally, a class that I really really want to take!
That's about all I have for now. I'm looking forward to seeing all the TTers that are going to be at Johnny's Saturday. The "pub crawl" as Mary calls it (not a pub crawl at all) involves running the course a second time after we finish the race. I'm hoping we get to wait a few minutes at least before we head back out, because I'd like to see Amanda finish. I know she's going to do great. Well that's all that I have for now. Bedtime!
136 Days to go!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
She ran so fast, and she ran so far!
Here's to the end of recovery week, and the beginning of strength block number 2! I had the luxury of my recovery week lining up with my break week from school, so it was a true recovery week! I went in to the lab a couple times to get some research done, but mostly stayed home and relaxed. Watched Phineas and Ferb on netflix, a lot.
I had a swim test yesterday. I was happy with my results. I didn't get to be one of the billion members of my team who lowered their T-Time though. Not that I particularly want my T-Time lowered. I know that sounds bad, but I feel like my current T-Time is a good fit. I think moving it down the next notch would leave me having to puke at the end of longer sets like 5x200s. I'm pretty close to that next level though. I just need to lower my average for those 2x400s a few seconds, so maybe in a month or two I'll be there, who knows. I also always seem to have trouble pacing those 400s. I take the first 100 out too fast, and I know that impacts my finish. If I could just slow that one down a few seconds, I think I would see my overall time drop. Maybe it's just mental though. Yesterday I felt amazing taking out the first 100 of the test. I felt smooth, strong, and was really feeling the water (something that had been lacking lately). I also didn't wear the drag suit (which I don't for my swim tests, just every other time). Anyways, I felt amazing, then I made the mistake of looking at the pace clock as I came into the 100yd turn. I love RIT's digital pace clocks on the sides of the pool, but sometimes I think I'd be better off not knowing. I went into the test with a plan. I'd hold one pace, that I know I can maintain for the first 300, then let loose on that last one. Didn't happen. I went into that turn and saw I was running 7 seconds faster than that pace. Seven seconds may not seem all that significant, but it's like 11% faster than planned. That got in my head, well, I let it get in my head. And I'm sure that made that last 400 hurt a lot more than it would have otherwise. Anyways, I'm happy with the results, but I know I can do better.
The true highlight of my recovery week cam Thursday, when I got a massage! Thank you Amanda! She bought me one for valentines day, and I decided I wanted to wait for my next recovery week to use it. It was definitely worth it. I've always thought of massage as more of a luxury relaxation type thing. But I really see it's value from a body maintenance perspective now. Apparently swim/bike/running for like 16 hours a week takes its toll on your musculature. The massage really helped smooth things out. Since the summer, I've had this nagging pain in my shoulder, that is fine when I swim, but keeps me from catching and throwing all the well in water polo. Thursday night at polo after the massage, pain free. Completely. Yay! Now I just need to slowly work back to shooting for real.
Today was another great part of the week! I mentored for No Boundaries this morning from GVP, and I convinced Amanda to come along so that she could go for a short run after. She loved helping out with the program. After, she wanted to check out the course for Johnny's next weekend. I was thinking that it would be a nice easy run around 10min/miles or so. Nope. She killed it. Took it out pretty slow from GVP through U or R, but she kept creeping up the pace. By the time we got to Ford Street we were running 8:40s, and then we went down past Corn Hill and turned around, 8:30s. Back over Ford St, and along back towards U of R. I look at my watch 7:56. WHAT? Where did this girl learn to run? I know she's been at the gym like crazy lately, but I had not idea she could do that! She ran the last two miles right at 8s. So much for an easy run for me, I was definitely in zone 2 for the last two miles. I'm excited to see how she does next weekend, and at the half marathon a the end of next month. Her goal is under two hours, I think she's going to nail it. She was pretty excited about her performance today, and the title of this post is a little song she made up about it. Next weekend you should ask her to sing it for you.
That covers pretty much everything I have to talk about. Other notables are I'm super pumped for Placid Training camp, and our new team water bottles and visors that are coming soon!
141 Days!
I had a swim test yesterday. I was happy with my results. I didn't get to be one of the billion members of my team who lowered their T-Time though. Not that I particularly want my T-Time lowered. I know that sounds bad, but I feel like my current T-Time is a good fit. I think moving it down the next notch would leave me having to puke at the end of longer sets like 5x200s. I'm pretty close to that next level though. I just need to lower my average for those 2x400s a few seconds, so maybe in a month or two I'll be there, who knows. I also always seem to have trouble pacing those 400s. I take the first 100 out too fast, and I know that impacts my finish. If I could just slow that one down a few seconds, I think I would see my overall time drop. Maybe it's just mental though. Yesterday I felt amazing taking out the first 100 of the test. I felt smooth, strong, and was really feeling the water (something that had been lacking lately). I also didn't wear the drag suit (which I don't for my swim tests, just every other time). Anyways, I felt amazing, then I made the mistake of looking at the pace clock as I came into the 100yd turn. I love RIT's digital pace clocks on the sides of the pool, but sometimes I think I'd be better off not knowing. I went into the test with a plan. I'd hold one pace, that I know I can maintain for the first 300, then let loose on that last one. Didn't happen. I went into that turn and saw I was running 7 seconds faster than that pace. Seven seconds may not seem all that significant, but it's like 11% faster than planned. That got in my head, well, I let it get in my head. And I'm sure that made that last 400 hurt a lot more than it would have otherwise. Anyways, I'm happy with the results, but I know I can do better.
The true highlight of my recovery week cam Thursday, when I got a massage! Thank you Amanda! She bought me one for valentines day, and I decided I wanted to wait for my next recovery week to use it. It was definitely worth it. I've always thought of massage as more of a luxury relaxation type thing. But I really see it's value from a body maintenance perspective now. Apparently swim/bike/running for like 16 hours a week takes its toll on your musculature. The massage really helped smooth things out. Since the summer, I've had this nagging pain in my shoulder, that is fine when I swim, but keeps me from catching and throwing all the well in water polo. Thursday night at polo after the massage, pain free. Completely. Yay! Now I just need to slowly work back to shooting for real.
Today was another great part of the week! I mentored for No Boundaries this morning from GVP, and I convinced Amanda to come along so that she could go for a short run after. She loved helping out with the program. After, she wanted to check out the course for Johnny's next weekend. I was thinking that it would be a nice easy run around 10min/miles or so. Nope. She killed it. Took it out pretty slow from GVP through U or R, but she kept creeping up the pace. By the time we got to Ford Street we were running 8:40s, and then we went down past Corn Hill and turned around, 8:30s. Back over Ford St, and along back towards U of R. I look at my watch 7:56. WHAT? Where did this girl learn to run? I know she's been at the gym like crazy lately, but I had not idea she could do that! She ran the last two miles right at 8s. So much for an easy run for me, I was definitely in zone 2 for the last two miles. I'm excited to see how she does next weekend, and at the half marathon a the end of next month. Her goal is under two hours, I think she's going to nail it. She was pretty excited about her performance today, and the title of this post is a little song she made up about it. Next weekend you should ask her to sing it for you.
That covers pretty much everything I have to talk about. Other notables are I'm super pumped for Placid Training camp, and our new team water bottles and visors that are coming soon!
141 Days!
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