I found some Red Rocks

So far…so good.  Well, as long as you don’t ask my throat.  I came into this trip with a slight head cold and a sore throat.  Speaking for 75 minutes at a shot multiple times a day…did not help the sore throat.  But what did help a bit is a crapload of water, a constant stream of Halls and some hot tea – all up on the podium for my sessions.

Nonetheless, since it wasn’t a fever…the training marches on.  (The general rule of thumb is no fever = no stoppage).

Yesterday I took my little rental car and checked out the city’s pool.  Located a bit of a distance from the Strip, but still on the ‘main drag’, it’s only a 10-15 minute drive.

Inside are two 25M pools that are sorta connected to make a 50M meter pool.  I use ‘sorta’, because it’s not a perfect square, but rather kinda like an “I” shape.  Either way, it works well enough for the 14 billion competitive swim teams there.  There were two lanes set aside through for open swim when I happened to show up, which actually worked out fine.  Plus, I had a bunch of very swift high schoolers in the lanes next to me to keep me moving.

The only problem was with the sore throat, the first few hundred yards hurt like hell.  I was relatively sure I was going to drown…in front of all the kids.  But after a while it numbed up and I was good to go.  So some 3,500 or so yards later I was all set.

The rest of my Monday was fairly non-descript.  While many of folks may partake in the Vegas nightlife, I was busy catching up on the day’s worth of e-mail, work and all sorts of other random e-items.  I haven’t even stuck a single quarter in the slot machines (though, the front desk did give me $25 in slot coupons to use…so I may use that before I bail).

Which brings me to today…

I’ve been looking forward to today’s ride for a while.  I had flown over the area the last time I was in Vegas back in the fall, and it looked spectacular.  So I did some research and found out it was Red Rock Canyon park, which has a nice 13 mile scenic loop (one way) along with some very solid elevation gain.  Given I had brought my bike out this time, and a rental car as well – I was all set to make the 20-30 minute trek out to the park.

Fitting in the category of ‘little things that make me happy’ - I was fairly excited at the fact that my bike fit into the back of my rental without even taking the front wheel off.

 

After a few short minutes of getting everything I was all set and ready to depart the parking lot.

 
It’s a fairly straightforward loop, where the first half is uphill, and the second half primarily downhill.

Here’s the elevation profile post-ride..so about a 1,000 foot climb in the first five miles.  Sweet!

There’s also some very solid 11% grade sections mixed in there for fun.

 
In many ways, I found this ride much like Skyline Drive back home – just a slow climb for a long time.  Here’s the initial road section leading out of the parking lot.

Soon enough the “Red Rocks” would be by my side, so I snapped a quick picture.  Although, this picture took many takes, as I found I wasn’t actually smiling…but rather grimacing.  Because the intake of very dry air at 4,000 feet in a highly aerobic ride…hurt with a sore throat.  A lot.  Sorta like swallowing needles.

Eventually I made it to the highest elevation point.  Took a little under 30 minutes at a constant Z2 effort.  My HR profile was about as perfect as it could be.  That’s the one thing that Skyline Drive has taught me – is how to maintain a very steady climb – without ever leaving my seat.

 
As I started to descend though, things got a little messy.  At this point I came out of the wind-shield of the mountains and out onto the flat desert.  And the wind was howling.  Hands down the highest winds I’ve every cycled in.  I’m normally really good at taking pics while cycling without too many bad shots.  Virtually every shot you’ve ever seen on this blog has been without stopping – just point and shoot.

But on even just a short little (albeit steep) climb (read: slow), I was being blown so hard sideways that I couldn’t even make a straight photo.  Here’s the ‘best’ of the bunch of shots that i took trying to get this one.

The good news though is that I didn’t crash.  But the bad news is that my ride was soon over, as my elapsed time had hit what I needed for this short workout.  My longer ride is on Thursday – and thanks to a reader, I was given an awesome route that I’m really looking forward to.  Hopefully I’ll be able to avoid some of the rough winds by getting out at the crack of dawn and out cruising.

A couple of random notes…

There’s nothing more fun than walking a nice tri-bike through a hotel/casino like the Venetian.  Good times.  Here I am hanging out with it in one of the elevator lobbies.

Which brings me to the thought of how big these hotels are.  Each lap around the inside of a single hotel floor is easily a quarter mile.  It would be a blast to do laps in the hallways (on the bike)…though I’m not sure how kindly the security folks would look upon that idea.

Secondary random note… Last night I got two chocolate bars on my pillow.  But tonight I only got one.  Now, I hid last nights so they would think I ate them.  But only one showed up tonight. :(  I wonder if they checked my trash looking for the wrappers and if they know I’m stockpiling them.  I’m going to have a big chocolate bar party by the week’s end.

Speaking of chocolates on pillows… G’night!

Ummm…it got hot.

I think this marked the beginning of the ‘busy season’, which officially goes from now until mid-November.  Sorta like opening day in major league baseball – only much less relaxing.

I honestly don’t remember what happened Thursday or Friday, so we’ll start with Saturday.

First off, ‘mother nature’ decided it would be ‘fun’ to throw a random curveball-esqe 91*F day into the weekend mix.  Now up till this point my winter had been a nice mix of everything below 70*F (occasionally below zero).  And so now, just for fun, we went from nice cool days to something approaching triple-digits.

Of course, the only logical thing to do then is to go to the market in DC to see out food – Eastern Market.  So the girl and I headed into the city in the morning and picked up a slew of items for dinner later that night.

 

We got some semi-local organic chicken, and a bunch of fresh fruits and veggies to later toss on the grill.  Now, the real reason to go to the market wasn’t because I actually wanted food.  Nope, it was because I wanted to check out a used bike dealer that I had heard about a few weeks prior. 

But, upon actually checking out the selection (very diverse), it was WAAAY overpriced compared to Craigslist…or even Wal-Mart for that matter.  So I skipped on any purchases.  I’m just looking for a nondescript commuter bike to get around Old Town in the summer (to the pool mostly).  I used my mountain bike last year, but I could dramatically improve my ground speeds with a road bike.  So anyway…no bike for you, or rather…me.

Next up was a nice little ride.  The coach had this originally scheduled for Sunday, but with trying to pack (more on that later), I pleaded to move it to Saturday.  He decided he wouldn’t make a decision until Friday (after 4 days of bike/swims post Boston).  My Thursday bike looked surprisingly good given Boston just three days prior (actually, it looked better than normal wattage wise…go figure), so I got the go-ahead for a Saturday cycle.

This means a theoretically casual 3-hour tour in aero on the tri-bike, or roughly 60 miles.  In reality, with the 90F+ temps, it turned into a three hour slogfest.

(Sporting for the first time I believe, my Ironman Canada bike jersey)

Despite taking significant precautions in the morning to over-hydrate a bit, by the 60 minute marker I was already feeling a little run down.  And my speed was ever so slowly declining.

It’s not that I wasn’t hydrating, cause I was.  I had taken with me on the bike 4x28oz water/nutrition bottles, and I was taking in liquid every 10 minutes per normal schedule.  But that wasn’t anywhere near enough.  By the end of the day (not even post-ride, but post-hydration and post-all-day eating), I would be down nearly 4 pounds.  Doh…fail.

There were points I was just gliding along until my bike would almost stop and then I’d peddle again.  No…seriously, I saw a number of low-single-digit numbers gliding on the flats.  Oh well, bad rides happen.  A redefined nutrition strategy should alleviate this for Thursday’s upcoming 3.5 hour ride into the desert.

However, the only recovery drink option post-ride I could find was a 1.5L container of Chocolate Milk…nuttin’ smaller. This = pure awesomeness.  And yes, that’s my bike in the backseat.

The good news though was that I got to BBQ post-ride.
The bad news though was that I got a really bad picture.

Sunday…

I only had one thing to do today.  Well, actually two.  First, I dropped the girl off early at the GW Parkway 10-Miler Race, and then I went off for a nice casual 40 minute run.  This run, like the day before – was another slow slog through the heat.  Except, being only 40 minutes it wasn’t too bad.  Just not too fast.  That’s fine though, it was the first run since Boston and all in zone (despite the heat slowly climbing back up to 91*F).

Post ride, I hopped on my mountain bike and bumbled along the course to the 6-mile marker, and then eventually the 8-Mile marker.  I saw a number of folks out there, including local Pacer friends, blog peeps, and peeps who read my blog (and then yell my name).  Hi!

Here’s some random pics along the way of both the 10M and the 5K events.

 

Finally, post-race I packed up my bike (for the second time in as many weeks).  Once again it was looking like an animal carcass hanging out of a tree.

So where am I off to?  Well…a TON of places.  I’ll be on an airplane about every 7 days.  The next 4 weeks has me visiting three continents (five countries) and one island chain…all for work, minus one little weekend side trip.  More on that as it happens.  These trips were somewhat planned, so my training schedule was already adapted to it.

(Somewhere between Washington Dulles…and San Francisco, on the way to Vegas)

But because the bike is so much of a focus for this year, the bike is coming along on the first leg of the journey – Vegas – so I can spend some serious time with it.  Thankfully United decided to not charge me the bike fee this evening (perhaps in a nod to the $4,000 in airline tickets I bought on Friday with them…).  And shipping it back via Fedex Ground is my new cheap way to get it back for under $50.

I’m speaking at a conference here (a whopping 7 sessions in four days), but the good news is that my schedule is broken up enough I’ll be able to get a nice long ride in Thursday, and then get to play (read: short ride) on Tuesday as well on the bike for a fair bit.  I’m looking at going to Red Rock Canyon for the Tuesday ride (looks looped and perfect), but I’m open to any Vegas peoples suggestions for a nice 60-70 mile ride for Thursday. I’m looking for something starting relatively close to the city (I’ll have a rental car), but a route that would be nice and quiet into the middle of nowhere.  Rolling, mountains, or large hills would be preferred.

…catch ya later…

PS (as I look at my camera’s photos) – quick side note.  Remember the running sign I saw in Boston?  Well, thanks to eBay I was able to get my own for only $9.  Arrived on Thursday, authentic and posted in this years race!

PPS – While at the airport this evening I saw the cast of “The Unit” (a TV show), catching an international flight on what appeared to be another USO tour.

Max Martini (Max) & Robert Patrick (Colonel Tom):

Dennis Haybert (Jonas Blane…and the Prez from ‘24’):

Things are made for a reason: Bike rack locks and wheel clips

The last few weeks my bike rack locks have been rather temperamental.  Not quite sure why, as I’ve been using them most of the winter for weekend rides out of the city.  But while I was fidgeting with them last week (and having problems getting one to lock), I was thinking back to a little ‘episode’ last year where I (and a friend), learned the importance of the lock mechanism during a driving situation.

Just so we’re all on the same page, here’s the bike lock device I’m referring to (below).  There’s a piece that flips over and then ya stick a key in it and turn it to lock it.  Up is locked, down is unlocked.  Super-simple.

Now, technically if you don’t lock it, the bike still stays in place.  It’s not like it’s willy-nilly or anything.

Now…turn back the clock to last years Nation’s Tri.  A friend who came up to watch/photograph had just dropped me off a few hundred yards from the transition area.  We had tossed one of my mountain bikes up on the racks so he could easily get around to take photos (one of the secrets of taking photos at any tri/running event – a mountain bike).  Due to some key-ring issues and trying to explain which key on my massive key ring was the right key, we (or maybe I, but entirely besides the point), decided that we’d simply unlock it then.  Given he was just driving around the nearby streets of DC trying to find a parking spot, he didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing the bike while he was driving.

So I go to cross the street and he starts to drive away.  Given we were unloading in an area most certainly not a loading zone, the acceleration applied may have been more than usual.

Well, high school physics taught me that everything has an equal and opposite reaction.  And it turns out – that applies to bikes and bike racks too.

Here’s my Paint re-enactment of what happened next.

The important point here is that while the bike cart wheeled backwards over the roof of the car and the handlebars graced into the rear windshield/window, the little red clip at the end of the bike rack stood up and did it’s duty.  It kept the bike from fully departing the moving vehicle.

Meanwhile, not too far away – I stood there kinda watching this whole fiasco with my head slightly cocked.  I certainly wasn’t going to go and intervene.  As that would then associate me to the unfolding circus act, which would in turn make any ‘cool triathlete factor’ I possessed…vanish.  After all, I am standing there with an expensive tri bike, an aero helmet and everything else that made me look the part.  A 10+ year old mountain bike flailing backwards off my car was not part of that role.

Naturally… I just walked away.

However, like the bike to the car - the lesson learned still stuck.

Aside from the front lock noted above, it turns out the back doohicky (below) is also pretty critical to the whole operation.  99% of the time it juts sits there and looks pretty and really has no purpose.  But…during that 1% of the time where the front doohicky isn’t cooperating (read: wasn’t actually used per the manual), then the back doohicky now has the all important role of keeping your prized bike  (or not so prized as it may be) attached to your vehicle.

So…in summary…everything (or doohicky) has a purpose or reason.  The front doohicky to lock it is there to keep it from jiggling loose (and casually pretending to secure your bike from thieves), and the back doohicky is there in case the front doohicky fails.  Just sayin’… – like NBC’s slogan - ‘The more you know’…

The 2009 Boston Marathon Race Report

Despite the fact that the Boston Marathon starts at a rather comfy 10:00AM, I was up at a rather un-comfy 4:45AM in order to get to the buses on time.  Buses you ask?  Well, the Boston Marathon is a point to point affair.  Starting in Hopkinton (Mass.) and then bee-lining it straight to downtown Boston, 26.2 miles away.  So they bus you from the finish area, to the start line.

So with my yellow bag in tow, I arrived downtown shortly after 6AM and wandered through the empty streets to find the buses.  It was fairly straightforward in that I just followed the yellow bags.  At first it was a few here and there, and then as people funneled into the same routes it became a sea of yellow lemmings.

 

At this juncture you get in line for the mass of buses.  They load probably 20-25 buses at a time, and then the next wave of them comes in.  Because all of the schools in Massachusetts have the day off for Patriot’s Day (the race is a Monday), we’re all on yellow school buses.  After about an hour of waiting, I score a seat on a bus.  Some folks were getting antsy – but here’s the thing to remember – it’s all just a big day of lines.  So ya gotta relax and go with the flow.  It’s a line to get on a bus, a line of buses to the start, a line to get into the village, a line for a porta-potty, a line to get to the start area, and then finally a big 26.2 mile long conga line to the finish.  Just go with the flow, you have PLENTY of time.

 

 

About an hour later (we got stuck in some traffic), we arrived at a middle-school and high school complex in Hopkinton – near the start of the marathon.  They had setup a ton of large tents on the different athletic fields and turned it into a huge staging area.  There were porta potties, food and all assortment of other random free stuff hanging around.  I did find it kinda funny that when I look at the satellite map of it, it was clearly taken last year just before the marathon – as it actually shows the tents in the image (big white things on the grass).

Anyway, here’s some pics of the area…

 

Oh, the person to the left is Rob.  We run together in training and quite a few races. We both qualified for Boston at Philly this past year.

After some time spent in the bathroom lines, we headed down to the start – which is almost a mile away from the school.  Not a big deal, you just wander on down.

 

Eventually we found our place in line.  It was kinda funny though.  See, due to my qualifying time of 2:54 my bib number was 1966 – which meant I was actually in both the first wave and the first corral.  But…because I had no plans/desire to run a 6:30ish pace for Boston, I decided to instead enter in the 4th corral with Rob.  Which led to a funny interaction with a little old lady volunteer that said “Oh honey, you can go on waaaaay up there” (gesturing to the front of the pack).  It was funny because everyone around us heard it and all looked.  Thanks…but no thanks.

A few minutes after we arrived we were off!  Of course…that first involved getting to the starting mat.  So that took about 4 minutes.

And then we found the start line (which is also visible on satellite imagery, pretty cool).

So this would be a good juncture to go over the course route/profile.  As I noted, it starts in Hopkinton and roams to Boston through a series of communities.

The course profile is the interesting part though.  The highest point in the course is actually the start.  And the first half of the course is largely downhill.  It’s not until the second half (up till mile 21) that things get really hilly and interesting.  And then from mile 21 to the finish it’s downhill/flat.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, my race plan was to have fun.  Sure, my coach gave me some heart rate guidelines – but they were more ‘max HR’s’ so that I wouldn’t hose up the larger training plan at work here.  So that left pace largely an unknown.  We decided to just wing it (kinda like how I hadn’t even considered a nutrition plan until Sunday night when I started laying out my stuff).  We’d go faster when we felt like it, stop when we wanted to, and go slow when it made sense.

Which…brings me to the start.

Given the downhill nature of the first few miles, we knew it was going to be fast – which was fine.  We ran in a relatively comfy upper zone-2, which ended up being a relatively quick 6:30/mile pace (once you remove the multiple bathroom breaks we took – hydrating for a 10AM race is hard…).  But that wasn’t the interesting thing.  The real kicker was how fast we – as a group – were going.  Usually in mass-running scenarios like this the group is at large moving slowly.  But in the picture below – EVERYONE is moving at a 6:30/mile pace.  And for miles on end.  It was just really really cool.

The second really cool thing (of many yesterday), was how many people were out cheering.  It was 26.2 miles of constant cheering.  There were really no gaps  Just people the whole way.  And everyone wanting to give high-fives…or free orange slices.  It’s really cool that the kids have the day off, as it gets them all out there and cheering.

After that, we pretty much just roamed along the course at a pretty solid clip for the next few miles.  We had a lot of fun though, taking pictures constantly.  I took 147 photos during the race alone.  Yes…seriously.

Of course…the part that many (well, many guys anyways) look forward to is Wellesley College.  This is where the all-girls school comes out to cheer everyone on.  In order to help you appreciate just how loud it is, I took a little video.  Check it out below (if you’re in an RSS reader, you’ll have to open the post likely).  Oh, and sorry for the slight bumpiness - I am kinda still running along sorta fast.

Oh, and here’s some of us (ok…us) stopping for the offered services.  We may have even stopped for a while…Only Mr. Garmin knows for sure.

That’s Rob below…he’s currently single – but that’s questionable after yesterday.  You can enquire on his blog…

Shortly after that we passed through the half-marathon mark and then eventually through some of the early rolling hills leading up to Heartbreak hill.

I found this sign kinda funny. It was posted all along the marathon route, aimed at cars…but also applicable to runners.  I really wanted to try and get one (just tied on made out of cardboard), but running with it for 10-20 miles might have been kinda difficult.

Around the 12-14 mile marker we decided to slightly ease up on the pace a bit (down to about a 7:20 or so mile) to give ourselves some breathing room for the upcoming rollers.  But we were both feeling pretty good and really enjoying the day.  I had a BLAST at giving high fives the whole race (even in the last mile).

Here we are as we started into the Heartbreak hill section.  This section between miles 20 and 21 comes after a number of hills between miles 16 and 20.  This hill is one of the big definers in the course and is the last major hill before he downhill/flat section into the core of the city.

Along the way a reader caught me on the hill and snapped a few photos.  Thanks Tim!

 

Our strategy for Heartbreak hill was to slow down a bit and simply climb at an easier Z4 HR.  This worked pretty well and we easily slid by gazillions of people who were having a rough time on this portion.  A short bit later, we crested the top.  Here’s a photo looking back and then ones of both of us after the top.

And then…it was time to cruise.  I had been doing some mental math since about mile 20 or so and roughly knew what our projected time could be.  Although we had no official plan or pacing thoughts, we had decided at the beginning of the race that we’d aim for sub 3:23 – which was the time we both had run the Marine Corps Marathon together in 2007.  But by around mile 20, we were cooking with much more gas and flying much faster than that finish time.  At that point a 3:09-3:11 time was looking more likely.  Given 3:10:59 is the cutoff for qualification for Boston (to get in for my age group), it seemed like a fun goal.  Now, our times from Philly already qualified us for two years worth of Boston (2009/2010) – so really this didn’t get us anything technically, but it seemed like a fun goal…

So…off we went.  We quickly picked up the pace coming down the hills and started to push a bit.  You can see it in my HR profile starting at the 2:35-2:40 mark.  Whereas the first 21 miles of the race was relatively easy and smooth (and low HR-wise).

 

Of course, this didn’t mean we stopped having fun.  Oh no…we were still having a blast.  Given our newfound tempo, and how late it was in the race – we were passing people like it was going out of style.  A tag-team event per se, with him passing people on the right and me on the left.

Along the way in the final stretch, I even saw fellow DC person Jeanne – see, she’s the one with the sign:

And with a little bit of photo-fixing, you can actually read my name on the sign:

 

And then there it was.  The holy-land.  The sign that means you’re almost home.  The Citgo sign.  The Citgo sign is near Fenway, and Fenway is just about a mile from the finish.  We kicked it up another notch.  With about a mile to go, we had approximately about a 7/min a mile to run.  Not a super-fast split, but we had to account for lots of weaving.

Before we get to the finish though – I do have to draw your attention to this photo (below).  Now, it may look like any of the other photos pointing the camera backwards of Rob (in white)…but it’s not.  Nope.  It’s actually me running backwards…at pace…at mile 25.

…Which…

Drew an enormous cheer from the crowd.  With yells of “Holy cow that guy’s running backwards!”…”And taking pictures!”

…Which…

Made me ignore the fact that after 21 miles, running backwards really does cause.the.legs.to.burn.like.hell.  Highly un-recommended.

Anyway…onto the finale (really, you thought it’d never come).  We rounded the last two quick turns and were on the main drag…Boylston street - with a GAZILLION screaming people (and The Girl screaming).  At this point, all you can really do is take it in.  Well…that an keep checking your watch to see if we can squeak in under 3:10:59 (again…just for fun).  It’s very hard to describe.  It’s unlike ANY other race I’ve done.  I think even more incredible than finishing an Ironman – the amount of people on the course is really the most amazing part.  And not just the end, but the WHOLE COURSE.

At this point, it was time for one last picture before crossing the mat (and ensuring to look pretty for the official photo).

Oh…and our final time…

…plenty of time to spare.

Here we are just seconds after finishing.

After that we began the long limp.  A very long waddle in fact.  Maybe close to a mile long, but it was probably for the best as it kept you (and your legs) moving.

First up was the water bottles.

Then the space blankets (it was only in the mid-40’s with a 15MPH headwind).  Btw, for some the headwind bothered them during the race, but for me I never noticed it.

Then came the chip for medal trade.  You put your foot up on a little wooden stool, and then they took off your timing chip and gave you a medal.  Seemed like a fair trade to me.

Then you were given a plastic bag with some food in it.

And then a man had a big box of bars…which you could take one…or more than one.

And then finally we were left to wander off and find our school bus to pickup our bags from them.  This took a while…because I waddled a lot.

Along the way to find my bus, I did see ESPN there – which was kinda neat.

So with that, that’s all I got!  (Yes, you thought you’d never see the end).  While my legs did hurt quite a bit for the first 15 minutes afterwards, they actually felt rather normal by the end of the day (last night) – pretty much how they’d feel after any random 20-miler long run.  Today they feel pretty good too, a touch-bit sore, but not too bad.  Which is good… 

But best of all…I gots myself one of these: