Yesterday, I arrive at home and find a present from TriSports waiting for me at my door. In it, some Gatorade Endurance, Endurolytes, and my brand-new Ultegra 12-27 cassette! So I grabbed my bike, threw the cassette on and headed out for the hills (well, the little speed bumps that we have here called hills - it is the midwest and the great plains, after all ;) ).

I wish I would have done this sooner. I’m not a super strong rider, and this cassette just flat out suits me better. Sure, I lose a teeny bit on the bottom half of my cassette and maybe some gears in between, but the range is just incredible. For one, instead of my normal riding being in my big chain ring and 3-4 cogs down from the top, I’m now riding pretty much right in the middle for the most part. This gives me much more room to play on both ends. With my 11-23, I’d find that it wouldn’t take much of a hill for me to have to shift down into my small ring to avoid being at the extreme ends of my drive train (generally, you don’t want to ride in your big ring and your big cogs - causes too much wear on your chain if you do it too long). Now, it takes a pretty big hill to have to drop down into the smaller ring which is just how I like it.

And having that bailout gear is sure going to be nice for some of those bigger climbs. I probably won’t even use it that much for the most part, but it’s nice knowing that you have that extra oomph if you need it. I still haven’t played around with the 11-27 combination. I’ll be sure to let you all know if and when I do.

I did my fastest 30 mile training ride yesterday averaging 20 MPH! I’m normally in the high 18s for easy rides and somewhere in the 19s for normal training (which is up from last year’s 17 and 18, respectively). To see my average speed for a solo effort start with a “2″ was nice though! I’m sure part of it was the excitement of putting on some new gear. And I’m sure I’m also well rested from the reduced workout volume. But the body is giving me good signs. I’m running faster than last year. I’m biking faster than last year. Only a strike can stop me now!

I blame it all on my friend Jon. He posted a couple days ago about this bushing that he bought for his car (the same car that I have) that is supposed to stiffen up the manual transmission. Well, I started reading more about it and what he was trying to do and sure enough, one thing led to another and I’ve found myself reading about all sorts of car maintenance and modifications. This has been going on for like… three days now - it’s that OCD kicking in! It’s like, instead of having triathlon and training in my mind constantly, it’s like I’m thinking about car stuff all day long. I’m still getting my training in, which is good. Maybe this whole training thing is actually becoming a lifestyle instead of it being something that I feel like I need to do. Wouldn’t that be nice? And don’t worry. I’m not going to be one of those guys who puts some huge gaudy spoiler on the back of his vehicle and has neon lights running underneath the car and who puts more money into his car than he actually paid for it. It’s nothing like that. I just like tinkering and “fixing” stuff and I have for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I remember liking to take stuff apart just so I could put it back together. I don’t think I’ve outgrown that.

Anyway, short of my regularly schedule oil changes, I hadn’t done any other car maintenance until just now. I hit the 30,000 mile mark on my car quite a while ago, but never bothered getting the work done for that milestone because the dealership wanted $800+ to do all the work! $800+?! I’ve read of some places that charge half of that and that still seems high. The total bill for parts for the 30k maintenance adds up to maybe $100. So I’ve pretty much done it all now - changed the oil, flushed the radiator, swapped out the fuel filter, and did a bunch of visual inspections. I ordered some new brake pads which should be here next week and I will change out my brake fluids at that time. Maybe even do my transmission and rear differential fluids if I’m feeling ambitious. Much like I thought working on bikes was a daunting task before I started to work on it myself, I’m finding out that car maintenance isn’t so complicated either. It also gave me something to do during my rest week and took my mind off of everything else that was going on which I desperately needed!

It’s back to hardcore Ironman mode on Monday, though. Just one more “base/build” block to go and I start to taper. Scary.

I really hope the union doesn’t strike. That’s going to suck… HUGE! All for now. G’nite! :)

I have to take my car in to get a couple of recalls fixed. I’ve had to for months, actually, but I hate waiting in the service center while they hammer on my car (well, hopefully they take better care of it that that). So I came up with the following plan:

• Drive to the car dealership and drop off my vehicle.
• Run back to my place - it should be right around 5 miles.
• Remove running gear and don biking gear.
• Ride doing my usual 30 mile loop but cutting it a bit short at the end to head back to the dealership to pick up my car which should be done by then.

Yes, this should work out quite nicely. I get my workouts in and there is no real waiting involved. Maybe I’ll bring a change of clothes in the car with me to the dealership so I can change there and do some errands on the way home? This should be a productive afternoon!

I got home from work this evening to find this waiting in my Inbox:

Dear Runner:

The 2005 TC 10 Mile had more than 6,000 lottery entries for its field of 4,500 runners, and unfortunately your entry was not selected. Due to the popularity of “The Shortcut to the Capitol”, the Twin Cities Marathon (TCM) will offer 100 additional TC 10 race entries to benefit its selected 2005 Community Partners: Assistive Technology of Minnesota, Bolder Options, Team USA Minnesota, and the TCM scholarship program.

To download a Late Entry Fundraiser form for the TC 10 Mile and to learn more about the 2005 Community Partners, please visit the TCM website at www.twincitiesmarathon.org. The web site also has more information about our 5K run and hundreds of volunteer opportunities available.

Thank you!

Poo on you, TCM! Figures… I had about a 75% chance of making it in and I don’t make the cut. My friend did and Carol did as well. Oh well. I can play the cheerleader for once and support her while she’s out there. Hopefully, she’ll still want to do it even if I can’t be on the course with her.

So, to burn off some steam I did my own “long run” this evening. Yeah, I know I’m supposed to be on a recovery week. But I needed to unwind after work, I’m behind in my running, and I wanted to vent some frustration on not making the TC10. After reading Sascha and Flatman’s blogs and seeing their geeked out graphs from their Forerunners, I decided to take mine along with me today to be geeky too.

The output from the Forerunner software:

Which I then exported into an XML log to upload into MotionBased.com. From there, I used the “Keyhole 3D Map” option and exported the data to be loaded into Google Earth. That gave me the following satellite photo of my run:

What the hell! I’ll throw in my Polar data for the geek trifecta!

In summary, I did 12.2 miles at 8:37 pace and with my heart rate at 140?! I know that’s nothing to you runners, but that’s got to be some kind of personal best for me. I’m sure that it seriously helped that it was only in the high 60s today. That’s right… after weeks of weather and reports from the National Weather Service to stay inside where it’s air conditioned, we get this day where the high barely hits 70. :P The weather here is so manic.

OK, this post is entirely too long already. Thanks for all your comments to my last post. I really do appreciate all your guys’/gals’ concern! And it’s nice knowing that there are others out there who have gone through the same kind of funk. I was in a really crappy mood at work today. I sort of have been in a crappy mood there for the past couple weeks. :( I still might take vacation for a few days this week. And after today’s run, I probably could stand to take the next couple of days easy and/or just finish with a complete recovery week from here out. Something tells me I’m going to be sore tomorrow. :)

For whatever reason, I feel like there is just too much going on lately and I find myself just wanting to take a step back from everything and just… go away for a week or something. Work has been kind of crazy these past couple of weeks for reasons that I don’t even want to get into right now. And training obviously sucks up a lot of my free time. Between both of those, I’m generally pretty tired and am just wanting to eat and sleep so I have energy for the day after. As a “single” guy without any further obligations, I feel swamped enough. I don’t know how you folks who train for Ironman AND have kids do it!

Then there is the added stress on the horizon. There is a potential strike here by the union folks if they can’t come to agreements with our company which could mean 12 hour shifts 7 days a week here for me real quick. That’s going to put a serious damper on my training. My fianceé’s sister is getting married in a couple weeks and with my own wedding early next Summer, there is already work and planning that is starting for that. And none of this is that bad (well, the strike, should it happen, is going to be bad), but it’s still stressing me out nonetheless.

Training wise, I think I’m going to take this week as a recovery week. I don’t really feel that my body needs one right now, but it’s either this week or next week and I think I’d rather do a larger “block” closer to Wisconsin than right now. I still have a bunch of vacation to burn this year too. Maybe I’ll just take the rest of the week off to recharge? Sorry if this post really doesn’t make any sense. I know it’s kind of random and not very coherent. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m still here and still alive. Just very, very tired is all.

I really wasn’t looking forward to my ride today as the forecast said it was going to be another hot day. But luckily Mother Nature was kind and gave us some relief from the heat. I think the temperatures today averaged around the mid 80s, which was about 10 degrees cooler than what I anticipated it being. And there are certainly no complaints from me there!

I did the same route that I did last week and did six more miles around my house at the end to make it an even century. Or what my watch said was 100 miles? I downloaded the data and on the computer now it says 99.9 miles! Grrrrr! Oh well… it gave me an extra tenth of a MPH faster than what my watch said, so I guess it’s more than a fair trade. 100 miles at 19.5 MPH. That’s my fastest (solo) century to date, so I’m pretty happy with that. I felt like I had more in the tank still, but I was happy to be done. :)

Then it was a short 2.2 mile run and I called it a day. The legs are a bit tired, but sitting on my butt after a hard days work sure feels good. Hopefully, I burned off some of that Sweet Taste of Italy and Outback that I had last night.

This is what it looks like outside from inside my garage. I’m sooooo glad that I decided to skip and ride another day…

Hmmm… maybe I’m better off skipping my ride until tomorrow or Monday even.

“The NWS Storm Prediction Center has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch… Effective this Saturday morning from 715 am until noon CDT. Hail to 2 inches in diameter… thunderstorm wind gusts to 70 mph… and dangerous lightning are possible in these areas.”

And if that’s not bad enough, we’re also blessed with this:

“… Heat advisory in effect from 10 am this morning to 7 PM CDT this evening… Temperatures in the 90s combined with relative humidity from 45 to 50 percent will make it feel more like 105 later today. A heat advisory means that a period of hot temperatures is expected. The combination of hot temperatures and high humidity will combine to create a situation in which heat illnesses are possible. Drink plenty of fluids… stay in an air-conditioned room… stay out of the sun… and check up on relatives and neighbors.”

Sounds like a good day to stay inside and watch the tour!

I have eaten
the plums spaghetti, garlic bread, and pizza
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Ok, so sweet and cold may not really apply but for whatever reason that “poem” by Mr. Williams came to mind. Sweet Taste of Italty, you are evil. I’m so incredibly stuffed right now. But it was oh, so yummy! :)

And this just in from a friend:

“It’s going to be 101 with a heat index of 108 tomorrow. You might want to push off as early as possible and drink at least 2, if not 3 bottles of water / Gatorade per hour. Be safe, don’t get hurt.”

Lovely day for a century! I’d postpone until Sunday, but it looks like it’ll be just as hot that day too. :(

With the hills in Wisconsin coming soon (despite my doubts, it looks more and more like it’s going to happen) as well as some more hilly rides that I have scheduled, I’m looking at swapping out my current cassette (11-23) with something with a little bigger. Shimano doesn’t make an 11-27 cassette for whatever reason, and I’d like to not have to use a 12-27 if I can avoid it because I do end up using that 11t cog quite a bit when I’m going downhill.

So… I think I’m going to try and piece together half of my 11-23 cassette with a new 12-27 cassette and have the mother of all cassettes that will get me up and down anything that I’ll be riding on. I’ve read this is doesn’t work all that well for 9-speed setups, but that 10-speed setups spread things out just enough so the gaps aren’t too large and shifting is still smooth. I suppose the worst case scenerio is that I’ll use the 12-27 and just won’t have that extra gear to hammer with downhill. Certainly whatever cassette I have on for Wisconsin, you can be rest assured that I’m going to use every single gear that I have on the back at some time over that course.

Not much else to report. I ran early this morning before it got too hot. It’s amazing how much faster I can run when it’s 20 degrees cooler out! I think I clipped off my first mile at 7:45 pace and my HR barely got over 140. On my death run on Tuesday, my HR was pushing 160+ and I was probably barely under 10 min/mi pace. The last two days have also included a pair of 30 mile rides. Tomorrow it’s another day of masters and probably another 30/3 brick. Then it’s another five hour ride on Saturday. Only four more of those to go. Yikes! We’re getting close…