Quadrathon

Review; Hood to Coast, the movie

2012-02-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

I missed Hood to Coast when it went in general release last year so when I was contacted to review the DVD I jumped at the chance, let’s be honest there are not a lot of movies about running so it’s good to see the ones there are.

For those of you who have not heard about Hood to Coast here’s a overview taken from the films website:

The annual Hood To Coast Relay has run every year since 1982. The race started as an inauspicious event for a group of dedicated runners to stretch their legs and expand on the everyday running experience. Bob Foote, the race founder, had run track with the famous Men of Oregon at the University of Oregon. Marathons had lost their appeal, and to keep himself interested in the sport he loved, he decided to organize an unheard of adventure, running from Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood to the Oregon Coast.

The idea was that 12 people would divide themselves into two groups of six, run three legs each and cover the nearly 200 mile distance from the mountain to the ocean. Running all through the night, it was an adventure for hard-core runners and sleep was secondary to striving for their fastest time.

In 1982 only 8 teams ran, but within a decade, the race had grown to the point where they had to cap the number of teams at 1000. The route shifted to avoid heavily trafficked highways as they needed to find convenient stopping points for the thousands of vans that now made their way through the Oregon countryside.

More importantly, the race had become an adventure not only for serious athletes, but amateur runners and thrill seekers. Team names began to describe not only the origins of the team, but the attitude they would carry with them on the course. Today, teams decorate their vans and take on a race persona, lending a carnival atmosphere to the nearly 200 miles of the race.

Sounds like fun right! In the spirit a picture is worth a 1000 words here’s the trailer;

So on with the review. The film is well made, the production quality is high and overall it makes for really interesting viewing, it’s a good mix of perspectives, history and interviews. The problem was with my expectations, I had set them in the wrong place. What I had failed to realize is that the movie follows four teams rather than the race and this I think is why I was left a little disappointed. The human element of the four teams is interesting to a point and they do cover the gamut of the teams; an over 50 female team; Heart N Sole, a rookie runners team; Thunder and Laikaning, veteran runners; The Dead Jocks and a team running to remember a team mate who died; RBowe.

There are the usual high and lows and funny and sad moments but the excitement of the “race” is lost, after all this is a race and by all standards a really competitive one and this element is given minimal coverage.

Overall I did enjoy the movie but I would sum it up as a movie that follow four teams that run a race rather than a movie about a race and the teams that run it.

It’s available to buy through their website here or you can rent it through Amazon Online here. These are the only places that I could find it although it is listed in Netflix it’s not available yet.

This product was provided free of charge by Hood to Coast. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com

Tagged!

2012-02-01T05:47:00.000-08:00

Lauren from On the Run Tagged me, so hear you go warts and all, I will try to avoid repeating myself from prior iterations

Rules:

Post these rules.
You must post 11 random things about yourself.
Answer the questions set for you in their post.
Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
Go to their blog and tell them you've tagged them.
No stuff in the tagging section about “you are tagged if you are reading this”. You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

11 Random Things About Me:

At most I usually drink one beer a week, that’s it. I used to drink wine but totally lost the taste for it 5-6 years ago
I have an insanely high tolerance for caffeine 3-4 espresso based drinks a day along with the same amount in drip coffee and I still fall asleep on the couch at 9:30pm
Swimming with fishes freaks me out, I have snorkeled and managed to keep it together, scuba diving is a total no no! This will make open water swimming fun!
My car has nearly 130,000 miles on it and I love it so much I don’t want a new one. It’s a VW Passat wagon but it’s comfortable has a kick ass iPhone stereo and tons of storage
I have given up with voice dialing on my phone by peoples names and now assign them animals, don’t be surprised if you hear me say “Call Aardvark mobile”. Odd yes, works yes!
I am the eldest of three boys between me and the middle one there is 2 years 2 months and 10 days, between him and the youngest there is 2 years 2 months and 10 days, our birthdays 8/28, 6/18, 4/8 cue Twilight Zone music!
Although I grew up with animals; dogs, cats, horses etc I have developed and allergy to cat hair?
I always make the bed when staying in a hotel in the morning, the rational is that you pack your case on the bed and so it’s easy to loose things when it’s all unmade. That’s my issue and I am learning to live with it #virgo
I put my clothes out at night, not just my running/biking clothes but all of them!
I hate leaving the house untidy; “what would the burglars think”!
Despite drinking copious amounts of coffee I hate coffee flavored food; tiramisu is undercarriage funk from the devil!

Now to answer Lauren’s questions:

Short shorts or long shorts? hmm compression shorts mostly which by design are longer, current favorite are made by CEP and reviewed here
How do you recover from a tough long run? Protein smoothie with coconut water, chocolate mile and frozen fruit, hot shower and compression clothing
Favorite brand running shoe? Since transitioning to mid foot running I only run in Newtons, my Sir Issacs have over 500 miles and my Distancias nearly 400 miles
Longest distance ever run? 98, timed out after getting injured during a 100 mile race, walked another 2 miles then was carried another 1 mile and got in an ambulance, later found out race measured 102 miles long!
What would you do if a rattlesnake coiled up to strike a couple feet from you? Act like a mongoose!
For women – do you wear make-up? For men – do you remove hair from anywhere other than your face? Yes, road rash sucks, trust me I know, so I shave my legs.
Do/did your parents, guardians, siblings, children run? My kids have run a 1k and 5k, they are only 4 and 7 and I would really encourage them to run more if they wanted to, right now they are all about the new bikes with no training wheels, which is just fine too! They have their fair share of Wii and iPad too but I love that they love taking their bikes to the park!
How many days is your longest running streak? No idea, I have never streaked, I did run four half marathons in fours days? Does that count?
Would you rather run in extreme heat or extreme cold? Cold, you can always warm up but it seems impossible to cool down sometimes!
If you had to watch the same movie ten times in a row, what would it be? Inception or Sucker Punch, brain food or cheap trashy action!
Vanilla or Chocolate ice cream? Vanilla…no brainer with apple pie please!

And now here are my questions:

Finish this sentence; “Revenge is a dish best served…”
If you could invite anyone who would you invite to dinner, (alive or dead) and why?
If you could run a race anywhere in the world, which one would would it be?
Sum up the bare foot, minimal running, normal shoes argument in a sentence!
Early morning, middle of the day, in the evening? When is the best time? To run…get your mind out the gutter!
Do you really read all those magazines you subscribe to, please be honest?
What’s your favorite race distance?
What does you family/friends think about your running/biking/swimming etc
In the style of “Jeopardy” please answer this question “yes, at least twice a day, Alex”
We all have our “Achilles heel” mine is my ITB, what’s yours?
Stretching; do you…should you?

And now the lucky recipients, made somewhat easier by a reduced blog roll!

Wow that was a long post!

Out with a bang!

2012-01-31T11:24:00.001-08:00

And back with a sniff!

January is in the bank, I have to say I am very pleased with how it all went with the exception of right at the end where I have caught a stinker of a cold from my one of my mobile germ warfare factories (aka kids), I thought I had shrugged it off but it hit me like a ton of bricks today! Off work and everything!

But let’s focus on the good stuff. I have created a nice little routine over the last two weeks which is:

Monday – morning swim, evening bike
Tuesday – morning bike, evening run
Wednesday – morning swim, evening bike
Thursday – Morning bike, evening run
Friday – morning swim
Saturday – morning swim
Sunday – Long ride and brick run

Yeah there are no days off but the back to back swims allow for recovery, especially as I improve in the pool, but I like having the 4 pool sessions as my swimming endurance is slowly building up and the shorter sets allow me to focus more on my form. That being said it’s not going to be sustainable to train 7 days a week when the distances get longer so some tradeoffs are going to have to be made. I managed my first brick run this weekend and while not a massive run; 5 miles off a 50 mile ride I was pleased that I could finish it in 40 minutes and that was with my first mile at 9:40 pace!

I also had my first race of the year which was very the 13.1 Los Angeles (report here) it was never going to be fast and I was pleased that I could go out and run a HM with very little training for it. Another success was that I tried my wetsuit for the first time, it was a a very quick dip in the local pool late on Sunday but I felt it was necessary to make sure that I could swim in it, finding out on race day that I couldn’t would have been really bad! It might be a tad too short; the curse of being tall and slim, typically as things get longer (taller) they get wider! The last big thing was settling on a saddle; an ISM Adamo Break Away for my TT bike, putting some mileage on it and riding on both the flats and through the hills if my road bike was anything to go by it’s going to take 1500 –2000 miles to get comfortable on it so I have a fair way to go!

Last Sunday’s ride; 25 mile flatish, 25 mile hilly

So let’s look at the numbers:

530 total miles (15 less than December which was my biggest mileage month for 2011)
50.01 time, so about 12 hours a week (around a 90 minutes per week gain over November)
57:58 miles running in 8:07 (December 9/1:19) Longest run 13.1/1:53
453 miles cycling in 27:49 (December 524/33:07) Longest ride 55/3:40 on Slice
25,525 yards swam in 12:35 (December 21,278/10:39) Longest Swim (x2) 1800yds 53:00 (Jan 7) 47:00 (Jan 30)
Starting weight 171.2lb ending 172.4lb

I am pleased about having such big back to back months. What I am really pleased about is my swimming, just this last week it has felt like it has clicked a bit more, my form feels like it is improving. I am building a more than a nod rapport with the folks I see at the gym (5am starts will do that) and they have commented that I am looking better in the water. I am still very focused on my form as having that correct will set me up for the next stages which are endurance and speed although I am seeing an improvement in my speed already (see the times above). I am still adding yardage each week to the distance I swim unsupported i.e. no pool buoy and it is getting easier as it gets longer.

So this week is a step back week, a good job with this cold. February’s focus is adding in more core work (i.e. doing some) and then I will have three more build weeks and a taper week to race day.

One last thing is that, hopefully I have been a bit of better blogger (try saying that three times fast!) both in posting and commenting, I shuffled up my blog roll and cut some, it was crazy long and a lot of them when I dug into them had died, so I am keeping it fairly short and manageable, as always I really appreciate you for stopping by, leaving a few words and not pointing and laughing too much!

Friday funnies…

2012-01-27T12:49:00.001-08:00

This used to be me…

But recently I am all about the...

I hope I never have this conversation with myself...

I<3flapjacks!

Have a great ~~brick~~ weekend!

The Claret and the Blue

2012-01-24T21:31:00.001-08:00

This is not a post about West Ham United Football Club! This is however a quick post about the, well Claret and Blue!

The Claret, if you saw this post you will have noticed I bought myself a new bike, a sexie fixie! The rational was to have something to ride with kids. They are almost off of training wheels (the youngest who is 4 has almost got it, but his stupid bike is also a fixie and he forgets to keep pedaling when going round corners and grinds to a halt!) I see a new bike for him coming real soon! I did not want to take $xxxx worth or carbon fiber to the park so I spent literally $250 and you know what happened on the the first ride it got scratched, kinda proved my thinking but inside of me a little piece really did die. I contacted the manufacturers to see if they sold touch up paint, they didn’t! So off to CVS I went and twenty minutes later I left with two bottles of nail varnish and taa daa one matched! If you need to know it’s #670 Violet Top Speed (who knew you could have fast nail varnish) by Revlon

The Blue, so on the back of my Tri bike is this elaborate hydration system, a frame is bolted to the seat rails, inside of it is a holder for C02 cartridges, outside of it is two water bottle cages. I had previously fitted it to the stock saddle that came with the bike and when I undid it I broke the seal on all the Loctite on the threads, this is the blue seal that stops you nuts from coming loose, something you do now want to have happen on a bike (or anywhere mind you!). I noticed that the frame had slipped down a lot after last weekend’s ride and when I checked all the nuts were loose! So thanks to Amazon Prime 48 hours later I have my tube of Henkel Loctite Blue 242 to recover the threads and make my nuts secure again…yes please feel free to comment away!

What colors work for you?

Five fast weeks!

2012-01-23T20:07:00.001-08:00

This would have been Six weeks of Speed but one week has passed! A few people have emailed me asking about my speed work plans so without further ado here they are:

All of these work out are from the FIRST 5K training plan so I can’t claim any ownership to them other than getting them done and making them my own! They are based on a 20:00 5k which right now would be a bit of a stretch but hey if it was easy everyone would be doing it!

This obviously doesn’t include any “off the bike” runs, next time I will leave my keys under the mat!

Setting expectations!

2012-01-22T17:38:00.001-08:00

I am usually late, actually that’s not quite true, in my professional life I am usually on time, occasionally early, in any typical week I spend 20-25 hours in meetings in various buildings as my company has expanded so I am often seen “fast walking” along corridors or playing frogger across the four lanes that runs between buildings. In my personal life I am a disaster! Why do I mention this, well because the expectation is that I will be late and so people, it would seem, bake that into their timelines.

So as mentioned yesterday my plan today was to run off the bike for 30 minutes. I was almost on time arriving back and figured that I would be able to squeeze in a quick 25 minutes or 3 miles, all I had to change shoes and ditch some of the cold weather clothing I was wearing, leg warmers etc. As I rounded the corner I could see my house and I could also see the SUV was off the drive…no one was in, I had no keys either! I dismounted and dug out my phone texted and called my wife but there was no reply. 50 minutes later she showed up.

“…well you’re always late so I figured you would be this time…”

Yep expectations set and met! No biggie I sat on the front step in the sunshine and chillaxed, not quite the Brick I hoped for! That being said my ride went well it was very much a two parter, the first 20 miles spent on flat and fast loops around a local lake, the next 30 miles climbing through the Santa Monica Mountains and then an easy 5 or so rolling home.

It was by far the longest ride on the new Cannondale Slice with the newly installed Adamo Break Away saddle, it went pretty well and all things considered I was comfortable, it’s going to take a little getting used but I did make a point of wearing Tri shorts rather than cycling shorts as that’s what I will be wearing on race day, I have also fitted my hydration solution which is an XLab Turbo with double Gorilla Cages, the bottles stayed in ok for the whole ride although I did notice that they were working their way out. something to be weary of in the future!

So this end another week of training and all things considered it went pretty well, 4 days of doubles, the only miss was today’s brick run so I was about 3 miles/25 minutes behind the curve, with 134 miles covered in 12:18

Turning the Screw

2012-01-20T22:48:00.000-08:00

My first Triathlon of the 2012 season, hell my first Triathlon evah!! is a scant 6 weeks away. It’s a Sprint; it should take me approximately 80-85 minutes to complete the 500 meter swim (15 mins) 14 mile bike ride (43 mins) 3mile run (24 mins). Of course I hope to be done sooner. Now while for the last 8 weeks I have been really really focused on the swim and really focused on the bike (albeit my road one and not my Tri one, pending recent saddle resolution) the one thing that has taken a back seat has been the run, in fact that’s not been anywhere near the front since late November.

That’s ok in my mind as it makes little sense to practice what I am good at (good is of course relative) and ignore what I am crap at and that is why I choose to do what I did, but with the race coming up it’s time to start turning the screw on the run, after all this is not like a usual 5k, I will have been in motion for around an hour before! With three successes (5k, 10k and Half Marathon and a partial success at the Marathon distance) it’s no surprise that I am returning back to the FIRST plan for some interval and tempo run workouts.

The first week (no pun) is in the bag and on Tuesday I ran 400m Intervals, I ran it on a Treadmill so I am reliant on a Garmin Footpod which is not as good as GPS or a Track so I am a little dubious over the splits but even with a margin of error they are not too bad.

Thursday I ran a 5m Tempo run and my Garmin had a heart attack (another reason I am doubting my Interval times, it also mucked the first mile from last weekend’s 13.1 race) AND I forget my HR strap, which I hate! #virgo

But according to the Treadmill, it was 8:20, 8:00 and then 3 x 7:40 so again I am not setting the world alight but it is nice to know that I can pull a reasonable run out of the bag. The other thing I need to dial in (by that I mean do!) is run off the bike i.e. a Brick, which is totally new to me. I did a short run after a ride a couple of weeks ago but it was so long after (20 minutes) that it probably had no benefit, so this weekend I’ll be running 30 minutes after a 4-5 hour ride, assuming I last that long on a new saddle…that might be a bit bold!

Do not panic….well maybe a little!

2012-01-17T21:06:00.001-08:00

Saturday night…

No Gmail, Blogger including this blog, Reader, Picassa…all gone! OMFG!

And 36 hours later…..

Phew….ahhh!

What would you do if it all went?

13.1 Los Angeles

2012-01-15T20:14:00.001-08:00

This would be the third time of running the 13.1 race. I am officially on a streak! It was never going to be fast and I was a bit worried about if I could pull it off at all seeing as I have not run more than 20 miles in total since November!

The game plan was to go out steady and stay there, enjoy it hopefully bump into some friends and just have a good time. I turned up at the start and managed after a little stress to park in the VIP parking, basically $20 allowed to park right by the race start which is a huge perk although it can get a bit fraught if you get there late.

The race is getter bigger each year and this year 2800 people ran the Half Marathon, that’s a lot of people squashed up against the Ocean but they seem to fit in ok, the race organizers kept everyone entertained. Due to perfect timing I had little wait time and after a decision on shorts over tights I was rubbing shoulders on the start line ready to go. I had no real idea what my time or pace would or should be so I had decided to be conservative and stick to a 8:30 pace, I have not run any real miles since my last 50k and nothing fast since the Santa Clarita Marathon so this was essentially a Z2 run; a solid base builder.

This year presented a new course which instead of being an out and back along Venice Blvd took the runners south around Marina del Rey and along the beach path to Dockweiler Beach which you passed and then returned along a short road section to the finish, as it was a point to point there were buses laid on the take you back to the start. The route itself is pancake flat and on the whole very pretty, running along a beach path is really hard not to like! The only downside was a short section where you run past the water treatment plant…consider that an incentive to hustle some!

I worked pretty well at keeping my pace steady and chatted with a few runners on the way, I had no iPod and it was actually really nice to not have to have the crutch of music, it’s also good mental practice as there are no iPods allowed in triathlons. All in all I am happy with my splits, nothing to set the world alight but a good solid set.

Something funky happened with the first one…oh well!

At the finish, there was large area set aside with the usual array of vendors, they also have 4-5 Food Trucks on hand. I didn’t hang about as the while the weather was perfect for running, cloudy and gray, it was not good for hanging out in and so I jumped on a bus and headed back to the start to pick up my car.

All in a grand day out and although my miles and time are down for the week I am really really happy that I still have the legs to go out and essential drop a Half Marathon with little or no training.

Finally as mentioned this is the third time I have raced this race and I was comp’d the entry, for which I am really grateful. Honestly each year it’s really only gotten better. I loved the preferred parking right by the start (best $20 you can spend), this year had more running along the beach front which was great, again there were hoards of volunteers and plenty of water and mountains of Cliff gels, the start was well organized, there pace lines and a great vibe. Although I didn’t linger I am sure the finish was fun with some great LA food trucks and the usual entertainment and oddities that you expect from the Venice area. As this was a point to point they also offered a drop bag service which I did not use but seemed really organized. I also got a really nice Craft tech shirt and the bling was nice and hefty!

2010, 2011 and 2012…streaking!

I know that the 13.1 series has added some more cities this year so if you get a chance to run one of these go for it!

Wordless Wednesday; The Open Road!

2012-01-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

From last Sunday…

More bike stuff…

2012-01-10T03:37:00.000-08:00

Bit of a theme this week! Created by: Healthcare Management Degree

Couldn’t resist…

2012-01-09T10:30:00.001-08:00

With Walter almost ready for his departure, he is currently being broken down and boxed, I couldn’t resist the call of <insert name>.

It’s a practical purchase really, as I need something to ride to the park or beachpath on with the kids and worrying about carbon fiber was not the way to go!

Plus it was on special offer through Bonktown.com, even more reduced than the 47% off the price listed on realcyclist.com, comes “with” pedals and it’s purple!

How many more reasons do I need!

Review; ISM Adamo Time Trial and Breakaway

2012-01-08T19:51:00.001-08:00

Alternative title; “The Great Tissue Issue!” The odds of the stock saddle on my Cannondale Slice being the right saddle for me were slim to none and they came in on the none side. For reference it was a Fizik Arione, interestingly my Cervelo came with a Fizik Pave and that got 86d in favor of a Selle Italia SL Flow which after a year and a couple of thousand miles is working out very nicely. But back to the matter in hand…so to speak! But first for reference here is a photo of all three:

L:R Breakaway, Time Trial, Fizik Arione

I had actually tried an ISM Adamo Road before settling on the Selle on the Cervelo but it wasn’t quite right but after some research I decided that the Time Trial and Breakaway models might work out on my Cannondale Slice and after some looking around and a couple of chats with Dean from P3 (PedPowerPerform) I had the two saddles winging their way to me for a two week trial. I started out with the Time Trial, this decision was based on:

It was at face value the more aggressive of the two
Has the handy “hook” underneath to allow it to hang from the bar in Transition
And it was to be fitted to a Time Trial Bike so I thought the name would fit

I had not realized quite how fiddly a Tri seat mounting was but after several attempts and the surgical attachment of a third arm and hand I managed to get it correct, in part this was achieved by measuring as best I could my position on the bike with the old saddle as I was fitted at the bike shop when I picked it up and in part after watching the video on the ISM several times. Above all the real key is to get the rails parallel to the floor not the seat.

So with the saddle fitted I set about trying it out. Due to time limitations and the fact that I didn’t want to get stuck out on a ride and not being able to sit down I stuck mostly to my trainer. After tuning in the saddle for 30 minutes I predominantly rode the Sufferfest rides as these are sufficient to take you mind of most things and if my ass or man junk or parts in between was going to make ist presence known it would have to get through the red haze of the angry carbon chicks of Hell Hath no Fury or the relentless chase of the pack from The Hunted. The final ride was on the open road and comprised of a twenty miler and took approx 80 minutes. I kept some notes on each ride posting then to Daily Mile and after 7 days and I had 69 miles to reflect on.

Up next was the Breakaway, at face value this had more deck to sit on and was more sculptured with a scalloped seat, that is the back arched up and the front dropped down…I think a photo would help!

So here is one; note the rails are parallel to the ground. In the right hand picture the saddle is straight but front wheel is turned. So in a similar way I set about crushing it on the several Sufferfest rides (and that is what I am telling myself!) although I did manage to finally get a decent ride using TrainerRoad…more on that later!

Unfortunately I ran out of time to do a road test but I still managed to accumulate 70 miles in a short week and by then my mind was made up and I packed them up and sent them back to Dean. So here is the final thoughts and conclusion:

Time Trial; this is a short hard saddle, there is not a lot of deck to sit on, width wise it was fine for me but I did not have a width issue with any of them. The shortness means you really have to “perch” on the front and there is no real fidget room. Additionally it is pretty darn hard, this could have been because this was a new saddle and it may give in time but right now it was hard. As mentioned the TT has a hanging hook which the breakaway does not. The prongs are more open at the front than the Breakaway which adds to requirement to sit on your sit bones. The back of the saddle is cut sharper and there is less opportunity to slide back and dig in.

Breakaway; as you can see in the photo above this is a bigger (longer) saddle, it’s not just the “prongs” that are longer the actual deck feels longer too. The scalloping of it combined with it’s extra length allows you to move back a little and this is useful when you want to dig in on climbs or just add more power. Additionally it is softer and while I didn’t want a saddle too soft I wanted one with some cushioning. The prongs here are closer together, this adds in my mind to the less aggressive position overall

So in conclusion after this trial I have ordered a Breakaway. I should get it later this week and I will have about 10 months to ramp up to be able to sit in it for 6 hours which I hope is long enough…I have no idea yet how many miles that would be but if I keep up my current mileage that should be north of 4500 which I assume is enough.

Special thanks Dean who spent time on the phone with me going through experiences of the two and making a special arrangement to secure a Time Trial saddle for me. If you are interested he offers a weeks worth of trial use for $25 including shipping both ways and that is knocked of the price (which he can get a little discount) on of a new saddle.

Ultimately of course a saddle, like any touchpoints (pedals, tape being the other two) on a bike are a very personal thing so you should try out a few before making a choice.

Here are a bunch of other photos

ISM Adamo Saddles

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

A month on the bike!

2012-01-06T22:54:00.001-08:00

Compare these two Sufferfest (Hell Hath No Fury) rides a little over a month apart. Check out the heart rate profile:

1:16:10 21.02 miles Ave HR 123 Max HR 152

Slight false start removed for this calculation. 1:16:40 22.0 miles Ave HR 112 Max 138

I’d would say that is progress, 30 seconds more, 1 mile more, 9bpm average drop and 14bpm max!

Walter’s new adventure…

2012-01-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

Really this was a slam dunk and this was exactly what I was hoping for, in case you missed the comment I have posted it below:

“I would love to adopt Walter as a gift for my husband, Blair. In 13 days he will turn 41. Four years ago, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, he saved his own life. He had gastric bypass surgery. Before surgery, his weight topped out at 420 pounds. The doctor told him that he would hit his goal weight in about 18 months. He did it in 6. He did this by completely changing his entire life. He did not just rely on that surgery to do the job for him. As soon as he could, he got up on a treadmill and started walking, a little at first, and a little more each day. He completely changed his diet. He realized his body was a machine and he needed to maintain it properly in order for it to work its best. Then, he started running. Within 3 months, he signed up for his first 8K. Watching him cross that finish line, tears streaming down BOTH our faces, is a memory I will cherish forever.

After that 8K, the running bug had him. 10Ks followed, half-marathons followed, marathons followed. And yes, he has done some triathlons. But that's where Walter comes in. The bike my husband has is, let's be honest here, pathetic. Our 5-year old daughter on a tricycle might be able to pass him in a race. But my husband pushes it as hard as he can, and does what he can to make up the time in the other sections. But I know what he really wants is a bike that will really help him not just finish a triathlon, but really compete in a triathlon. Each race he strives for a PR. And I know what he really wants is to compete in an Iron Man someday. But there is no way he can do that with the bike he has. And money is tight. My husband is an inspiration. As I wait for him at finish lines, I always turn to people and tell them his story because I am so proud of him. Our daughter loves to tell people that she is waiting for her daddy to finish his race. He is an amazing man, and I want him to have an amazing bike. It sounds like Walter is that bike. I truly hope you will choose us as the new adoptive family for Walter. I promise that he would have the best home. Thank you so much.”

Cullenivore drop me a line to quadrathon at gmail dot com with you contact info and I will start to make the arrangement to get Walter ready for his next adventure!

December reviewed…

2012-01-01T22:48:00.001-08:00

It seems a bit odd reviewing the month a day after I reviewed my year but there are distinct differences; strategic vs. tactical you might say. I had some clear goals for the month, the focus was on the pool and bike. I had targeted 20,000 yards in the pool and 125 miles a week on the bike with and end goal of 500 miles.

545 total miles (331 more than November) biggest mileage month for 2011
44:56 time, so about 11 hours a week (around a 4 hour per week gain over November)
9 miles running in 1:19 (September 86/15:26)
524 miles cycling in 33:07 ( September 123/7:52)
21,278 yards swam in 10:39 (8350 in November, 11,200 in October and 5150 in September)
Starting weight 171.2lb ending 171.8b (from 187 at end of April)

I’ll not dwell on the running, it was on the back burner for a reason.

The cycling went well the longest ride of 75 miles was yesterday and was followed by another 25 miles today with no issues. A lot of the miles were spent on the trainer with long rides on the weekend. I am trialing the second Adamo saddle (BreakAway on the right below) this week on my Cannondale Slice having spent time on the Tine Trial model, on the left.

My swimming is coming along, slowly, per yesterday’s post I am working on bi-lateral breathing, while this is a bit of a step back I think it will serve me best in the long term. I took two swimming lessons during the month and got some good tips and now it is all about practice, practice and practice! I have found that the little and often methodology 4-5 times a week with 1000-1200 yards covered allows me to focus on my form which if I get that right I can build out my endurance. Right now I can manage a mere 300 yards or so without any floaty bits, for the Desert Tri I need to get to 500 yards which in reality means 750 yards to give me some measure of comfort! So to achieve this I am simply going to add 50 yards a week through January and February so the math should looks like:

9 weeks x 50 yards = 450 yards + existing 300 yards = 750 yards

In January I’ll be digging out my running shoes too, I have a half marathon in two weeks so I need to remember this left foot right foot thing!

62 days to go!

Looking back and moving forward…

2011-12-31T23:14:00.001-08:00

This was the list from this time last year…let’s have a look shall we…

Keep it real, fun and with the family! – kids ran their first mile race and then went onto a 5k, that’s a long way when you are 3 years old, good use of the walk/run methodology!
Drop 20lb and get back on the good food bandwagon – currently 17lbs down and actually hit the 20lb lost mark in the fall, gained a few over Christmas
Pick up 4 minutes on my 10k and 7 minutes on my Half Marathon – didn’t race a 10k but dropped a good 2 minutes off of my 10k PR of 44:01 during raining runs. I did shave 30 seconds from my 5k getting closer to 19 minutes flat. I killed my HM PR and went sub 1:30 and took 13 minutes from my marathon PR with a 3:32, although I missed my target and BQ. I also restamped my Ultra Runner Passport for the first time in 2 years!
Plan the work…then work the plan – went with the FIRST plan for the HM and nailed it!
Consistency is king and that's where the results live - first half of the year was a mess, managed to get my shit together for the second half and finished December really strong!
Cross Train; I got the bike now I need to use it! – yeah plenty of bike miles this year!
Do the good stuff I am supposed to; foam roll, stretch, yoga etc – hmm yeah about that!
Transition to Mid/Forefoot – spent 6 weeks being very deliberate in transitioning to mid foot, I am in Newtons full time now and I attribute this change to my results
No new kit in Jan, Feb or March! – I think I managed this but I am sure I made up for it in the other 9 months!
Sleep…get more than I get now! - total fail!

So as for 2012, I has my race schedule pretty much locked down, there will be a few more events that will be added, some shorter races and longer bike rides; Centurys and the like. Goals for the races will unfold with the training so here is a list of non “race” goals:

Bi-lateral breathing, I had convinced myself this was impossible but having swam 500 yards doing it this week it seems much more possible
Swim Swim Swim, once I have this figured out swim some more!
See # 7 above
See #10 above
Work more on my diet, and periodize to reach racing weight on race day
Become a better cyclist; stronger climber and more confident descender
Be a better bloger; both as a writer and reader, this year I slacked off on both!
I ~~will~~ (no point setting myself up for failure) am going to try the keep the kit to a minimum although as it has been pointed out to me; triathlon is Greek for wallet rape!
Do it for the kids, my eldest is off the training wheels and has a new bike, maybe I can get him to work on his swim and run too!
Enjoy the journey, smile and have fun…it’s all to easy to take all this way too seriously!

Happy New Year!

Fireworks in Ink from karlo benson on Vimeo.

Walter needs a new home…

2011-12-29T10:02:00.001-08:00

I first met Walter about 6 years ago; he was clean and tidy and had no real signs of abuse. Prior to out meeting he had been in a series of short term relationships, he was a rental, pimped out during the summer and those “let’s go for a ride” days! The relationships he had had, none of them lasted longer than a day and some were as quick as an hour. He longed for something more substantial, a partnership where he could dig in and provide support over the long term, see some of the world and be there through the ups and downs.

To be honest I have lost track of the distance we have gone together, it’s a long way, something north of 8000 miles maybe even 10,000 miles. Some more memorable occasions were my aborted Century Ride (broken spoke halted me around mile 80) and a ride through Death Valley to Badwater.

We have crisscrossed the Santa Monica Mountains on countless rides and spent cold dark nights in the garage with nothing but the hum of the trainer to keep us company.

During the years he had some changes, a new crankset replaced the original as well as replacement wheels, the stock rear one buckling under impact during a 40mph decent…it was a straight line! During all of these years and miles he has kept me upright and he never tried to throw me to the curb!

But last year things changed, Thor came into my life and Walter took a back seat, it was inevitable and I had been preparing him for over two years for this event and he was ready to embrace his new place…for the last year he has hung out in the garage and has now taken on a hue of neglect, a thin patina of abandonment covering a willingness and wantingness to be out on the open road.

Now I consider myself pretty fortunate, while I can’t go out and drop wads of $$$ without thinking about it I can, with some dedication, save up for those big ticket items over time. I understand that for other folks this may not be the case and sometimes somethings are just out of reach and so this is my offer. Walter needs a new home and he needs some TLC and if you offer that then you can have him for free, gratis, nix, nothing, nada...except the cost of packing and shipping!

There are no conditions other than he needs to go to a home where he will get some use, want to cross train, ride a century, race a duathlon or like me become a triathlete here is your chance otherwise maybe your partner needs a bike to accompany you as you run or ride or you have a parent or child that could do with it, all I want to avoid is him ending up on eBay or Craigslist and the cash in your pocket and so I will completely trust that your intentions are honorable.

So here are the details, he is a 2005 58cm Raleigh Grand Prix, I am 6’1” and he fits perfect, anyone who is between 5’8” and 6’3” should be fine. He has a triple chainring at the front and 9 cassette at the back. The frame is aluminum and the fork and seatpost carbon. The groupo is a mix of Shimano, Truvativ and Tektro, Cane Creek wheels round it out. He will come as you see in the picture above without the Profile Design bottle cages, saddle bag and pedals.

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me who will get him (it’s ok if it really is you) and why and I will choose the most compelling. As mentioned you need only pay for boxing at my local bike shop and shipping, I am guessing you will get change out of $100 for domestic US shipping which is the only geographical limitation, we can settle up through PayPal…of course if you’re local you can pick him up…I will pick a winner in a week or so.

Oh and he can become a she too for you who prefer to name your bike Tracey or Susan or black ninja stealth assassin from the underworld, Walter is only a nod to the brand Raleigh, Walter Raleigh, explorer, adventurer…get it…nevermind!

I think it’s a pretty good deal as $100 will get you diddly squat in most bike shops!

So if you didn’t get a new bike for Christmas here is your chance to get one for 2012!

Cold and Christmas…been and gone!

2011-12-27T15:25:00.001-08:00

Ah Christmas week, the perfect time to catch a cold! So I did…nothing major although I felt pretty crappy for a couple of days and it’s now in the rear view mirror. Inevitable really given that 80% of the people I work with were sick and half of the household likewise. So that was that, I eased off the gas took a day off and then took Christmas day off and that was the week done!

So behind on all fronts in terms of the goals with on 3000 yards covered in the pool (2000 short) and 90 miles on the bike (35ish short). No point worrying about that now. Not sure I mentioned this but I have had a couple of swim lessons. They went “kinda” well, but I ended up with some conflicting info especially about my arms being straight vs. bent on the catch, (I am bending), but I did get a lot of good info, and I am getting better slowly…or should I say I am slowly getting better. I only had two as that was all that was available before the pool shut over the holidays and now it’s up to me to practice. I am shifting my frequency from 3 times a week to 4 or even 5, this is allowing me to focus on my form and create that muscle memory rather then “muscle” through and reinforce bad habits.

On the bike front I took receipt of two ISM Adamo saddles to try out for the next two weeks, the Fizik saddle that came with my Cannondale Slice was just bloody awful so I have the first one fitted and after some fiddling it is feeling pretty good, ironically as a worshipper of the red/black/white color scheme this comes with a green trim…which matches my trainer! I have only an hour on it so far and it is feeling pretty good…of course minus the pineapple!

So I have another 5 days left with this one the Time Trial Model and then I will switch it out for the Breakaway model which has more surface area and perhaps more fidget room. One thing for sure is that the Cervelo will taking a back seat for a while as I dial in this bike and put some serious training miles on it! I have the following profiles to ride, these are the two longer race days:

Vineman…fast and flat

IMAZ…fast and flatish and far!

I will give you a full report on the saddles in a couple of weeks once I have spent some quality time with them both. I was also channel surfing the other day and I came across some coverage of the 2010 IMAZ…all good recon work:

Merry Christmas...

2011-12-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

Geseënde Kersfees,Een Plesierige Kerfees, Rehus-Beal- Ledeats, Gezur Krislinjden, Milad Majid, Feliz Navidad, Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand, Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun, Selamat Hari Natal,Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!, Vesele Vanoce, Feliz Natal, Shubho borodin, Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat, Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo, Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou!, Feliz Navidad, Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun, Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan, Yukpa, Nitak Hollo Chito, Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo, Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth, Pace e salute Rot Yikji Dol La Roo, Mitho Makosi Kesikansi, Sretan Bozic, Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok, Glædelig Jul, Christmas-e- Shoma Mobarak, Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast, Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo!, Gajan Kristnaskon, Ruumsaid juulup hi, Melkin Yelidet Beaal, Rehus- Beal- Ledeats, Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar!, Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad, Hyvaa joulua, Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar, Joyeux Noel, Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier!, Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar!, Bo Nada, Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr!, Froehliche Weihnachten, Kala Christouyenna!, Juullimi Pilluaritsi!, Froehliche Weihnachten, Jwaye Nowel or to Jesus Edo Bri'cho o Rish D'Shato Brichto, Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar, Shekara!, Mele Kalikimaka, Mo'adim Lesimkha, Chena tova,Baradin ki shubh kamnaaye, Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!, Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou!, Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket, Gledileg Jol,Selamat Hari Natal, Idah Saidan Wa Sanah, Jadidah,Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat, Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson honungradon nagwutut, Ojenyunyat osrasay, Buone Feste Natalizie, Shinnen omedeto, Kurisumasu Omedeto, Mithag Crithagsigathmithags, Sung Tan Chuk Ha, souksan van Christmas, Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!, Prieci'gus Ziemsve'tkus un Laimi'gu Jauno Gadu!, Wjesole hody a strowe nowe leto, Priecigus Ziemassvetkus, Linksmu Kaledu, Heughliche Winachten un 'n moi Nijaar, Sreken Bozhik, IL-Milied It-tajjeb, Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa, Meri Kirihimete, Shub Naya Varsh, Merry Keshmish, God Jul, or Gledelig Jul, Pulit nadal e bona annado, Bon Pasco, Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu, En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!, Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo, Maligayan Pasko!, Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie, Feliz Natal, Christmas Aao Ne-way Kaal Mo Mobarak Sha, Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi, Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, Bellas festas da nadal e bun onn, Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn!, Craciun Fericit, Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom, Buorrit Juovllat, La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou, Bonu nadale e prosperu annu nou, Hristos se rodi, Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce, La Maunia Le, Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou, Nollaig chridheil huibh, Hristos se rodi, Subha nath thalak Vewa, Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa,Vesele Vianoce, A stastlivy Novy Rok,Vesele Bozicne Praznike Srecno Novo Leto or Vesel Bozic in srecno Novo leto, God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År,Maligayamg Pasko, Masaganang Bagong Taon,Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal, Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech!, Sawadee Pee Mai or souksan wan, Christmas Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun, Srozhdestvom Kristovym, Naya Saal Mubarak Ho, Chuc Mung Giang Sinh, Nadolig Llawen, E ku odun, e ku iye'dun! and Cestitamo Bozic!

May your God go with you!

‘tis the season…

2011-12-24T18:54:00.001-08:00

…of sales, sales, sales.

So it occurred to me in a moment of something that I should perhaps try my wetsuit on, that seems of course the perfectly practical thing to do on a Christmas Eve after a 30+ bike ride right! My point being that if it did not fit now would be an opportune time to get one that did; i.e. in a sale!

So from under the bed I pulled it out and unpacked it. It is an Aquasphere Racer suit which by all accounts is a pretty good one, it was designed with Faris al Sultan who won the Ironman World Championships in 2005. I never choose it I was fortunate enough to win this earlier this year in a competition on Daily Mile sponsored by Ford Training Team in conjunction with Ironman, which is why you see all the MDots on it. Much as I would love to sit and describe the smell of fresh rubber and neoprene I figured a photog edition would be best…and so on with the show:

It comes in it’s own case

And is all wrapped up…well it is Christmas

Unboxed…

One foot in…someone in the know told me about using bags!

Two feet in…and with some wriggling…

Note aforementioned mentioned box!

Stupid look is compulsory!

So I adopted one…if I can’t outswim maybe I can make them laugh!

Have a nice day…

My initial thoughts are that it is snug, which I hear is a good thing, there is no room for the forecasted Christmas pounds. It’s also flexible, I windmilled my arms around a bit and that seemed fine. It’s a little tight from groin to shoulder but that is probably just because it is new and I have nothing to compare it to. I did notice it was hot, I put on tri shorts and vest under and with all the wriggling I was getting pretty warm!

So with all that done I need to go and find some open water or at least an outdoor pool to try it some more!

Review; Zhip smartphone stand

2011-12-20T17:42:00.001-08:00

At this time of the year it’s a pretty common thing to find people confined to the treadmill either in their home or the gym. If you are like me the treadmills at the gym seem to have a revolving menu of Judge Judy, Home and Gardens TV and a really grainy image of something Korean! In the past I have run (no pun intended) the risk of using my iPhone to watch a movie and thanks to my OtterBox it has suffered no damage despite taking a couple of good falls from the treadmill and one from the top of a stairclimber…now this is not a review of OtterBox but it is a review of the Zhip

You have probably seen holders/kickstands for your iPhone (or other smart phone) but the Zhip takes it one step further and essentially secures it to your treadmill etc. The integration of the retractable and lockable cord allows you to “hang” from something and will not let it fall to the ground. Oh and you can take pretty weird pictures when you use a mirror!

As mentioned the Zhip will fit a smart phones, it expands with two internal springs and will accommodate anything up to 3” wide. The retractable cord is a meter long and as mentioned locks to avoid any “bounce” leaving you focus on the important thing; your workout. Once finished it folds down and is not much bigger than a Zippo lighter…of course as an athlete you will know exactly how big that is right!

And beyond that there is nothing much more to say…like all good products, it works! Here is their video…

Available like just about everything through Amazon the Zhip will set you back $15.00 and makes an excellent last minute stocking stuffer!

This product was provided by Zhip. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

Swim, bike, rinse, repeat!

2011-12-18T18:58:00.001-08:00

This week was always going to be a challenge, three days on training courses, two of which were out of town. I booked a hotel that had a pool, no one could answer when I asked about the size, the photo of course was very deceiving and the pool was at best 10 yards long! Fortunately there was a 24Hour Fitness next door which had an outside pool, chilly; yes, but needs must, although the pouring rain, thunder and lightening was a little off putting thankfully it had stopped by the time I got there! It was a but chilly but once I got going it was all good and I even went there after the second day to avoid sitting in the “Orange Crush” as the rush hour traffic is called.

I also had a swimming lesson this week, it just made sense and there is a local school, if fact my sons go to it, and I have another next week, lessons learned:

1) My legs are like a breakdancing frogs - fins, swim from hips, keep ankles straight, point toes
2) Smooth stroke - breath every 4, bi-lateral is not happening, tilt head out don't rotate whole shoulders etc
3) Propulsion - nice long straight arms, pull through water etc
4) Streamline - look down not at angle/ahead

So that was what I have been focusing on…so far so good, kinda! 5250 yards for the week!

On the bike front I rode one Sufferfest in addition to the Threshold test and another TrainerRoad ride. That left a chunk of mile needed for the weekend. So this morning I headed out looking for a bit of everything, rollers, flat, descents and climbing oh and of course miles! Fortunately for me the Santa Monica mountains are criss-crossed with roads which provide the ups and downs and the Pacific Coast Highway is a great place to get on the drops and just dig in.

So a feather short of 5 hours later, including time taken to stop and strip off at a porta-john, (tights and cycling bib take a little wrangling!) I was done with a metric century on the clock, (62 miles). 20 miles of rollers, a 3 mile 1000' decent followed by 25 miles of almost flat along PCH and then a ball busting 1850' elevation gain over 10 miles before a hair raising roll down the other side (some parts are a -10% incline) and back home! Overall I felt solid but I can be stronger on the climbs but my real weakness is going down...nerves from big crash years still ago plague me! Upon reviewing the data I over half the ride was in Zones 1 and 2 which is good.

Obviously all the climbing kills the average pace for the ride but further inspection on the flats reveals an average pace north of 18mph, so I am getting closer to my goal of 20mph, although I was drafting a wee bit off of speedy carbon chick on a TT bike for a mile or two! This coming week I should receive some trial saddles for my Cannondale Slice and I’m hoping the speed will transfer over from my Cervelo…we’ll find out next weekend!

So with 110 miles on the bike here endeth the week!

13.1 Los Angeles winner…

2011-12-18T15:33:00.001-08:00

Drumroll…

FatOldTrailRunner…contact me at Quadrathon at gmail.com and I will send you the entry code!

Thanks everyone who entered and did the required! If you decide to go anyway, I recommend you do, and you see me please stop and say hi!

Congrats and see you on the 15th!

Zoning out on the bike…

2011-12-16T23:44:00.001-08:00

This is bit of an impromptu post that occurred to me while I was traveling so I thought I would share it. So for the past two nearly three weeks I have been working on my swimming and my bike, my midweek rides have been typically riding along with the Sufferfest with a long ride at the weekend I have also tried a couple of rides using TrainerRoad

TrainerRoad Output screenshot

To mix it up I decided to ride a Spinervals DVD that came with my Kurt Kinetic trainer and during the week I rode a #17 “Threshold Test and SufferFest”. Before I get into the results I have to say that this is THE MOST BORING RIDE DVD EVAH!!! Watching a dozen or so riders on trainers in a Mercedes Dealership…really, really!!!

You pays your money and takes your choice!

I mean come on, as I side note rant this DVD retails for $30, for that and the price of a cup of coffee get yourself three Sufferfests or six CycleFilm DVDs which are currently on sale!

Now that being said there is some benefit to this DVD which is the 20 minute Functional Threshold Test, it’s a steady state effort over 20 minutes designed to allow you to work out your cycling zones and power output…the idea is to ride at a sustainable pace somewhere around 85-90% of your RPE (Rate of Perceived Effort), from there you take the average HR an plug it into this calculator…easy!

Slow build up to the 20 minutes

Result in SportTracks

As for the results I was pretty pleased, for the 20 minutes (actually 21 to round it up) I sustained a 20mph pace, average HR 153.8 let’s say 154, so there is plenty of headroom there and my average cadence was 91.25; not too fast or slow. So when I plug my heart rate into the calculator I get the following:

So armed with the data I can upload it into my Garmin Edge 500 and this will allow me to make sure my hard rides are hard and my easy ones easy…of course all of this was done on my Cervelo road bike and I will need to execute and update it on the Cannondale Slice once I have sorted out the saddle…more on that later!

13.1 LA Giveaway!

2011-12-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

The good folks at the 13.1 Series have given me a race entry to give away! I have run this race the two previous years, this is only the third year, and have nothing but good things to say, you can read prior years reports here; 2011 and 2010.

This year there is a change of route and the race will now stay on the coast and in addition to running along the Venice boardwalk the course will take runners down to Marina del Rey, the largest Marina in the world!

So how do you win and free entry will it’s pretty simple really;

Follow my blog (of course you are already following me right?), that gets you your first entry
Like the 13.1 series on Facebook, is your second.
Follow me and 13.1 on Twitter and Tweet the following statement for your third - I just entered the @Quadrathon contest to win a free entry into @131Marathon Los Angeles in Jan 2012, you can to at bit.ly/ua573t #131LA
Comment on this post telling me what you have done gets you fourth
Easy right!

Winner will be drawn Sunday…watcha waiting for!!

The Dance Card

2011-12-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

2012 is shaping up to be a fun filled year, here is what is on the radar…

01/15/12 13.1 Los Angeles Registered
03/03/12 Desert Sprint Triathlon Registered
05/20/12 Pacific Coast Olympic Triathlon
07/15/12 Vineman 70.3 Registered
09/15/12 Bakersfield Olympic Triathlon
11/18/12 Ironman Arizona Registered

There will be a few others that will flesh it out but this is the framework!

Quadrathon 2.0; time for a facelift!

2011-12-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

In this era of misspelt words that signify a whole website and one image that is supposed to portray everything that you stand for it seemed like the right time to give the blog a bit of a facelift. Blogger has, over the last few years, become much more updated and flexible and the look and feel of my site was mostly unchanged from when I started it back in 2007! Yes I am coming up for 5 years!

I have been playing around with a beta site that I use and after lots of tinkering I think I have a pretty good finished product, it’s a lot cleaner and I have gotten rid of a lot of the buttons and badges that have cluttered it up. It’s all subjective I know…damn I hate marketing, but if you have any feedback please let me know.

The other thing that has reappeared is the old podcast, three episodes in the last month have made it to the interwebs, I aim to use to keep track of my progress to Ironman Arizona next year and while there ~~will~~ should be more blogging than this year, (was it me or did a lot of people just take a bit of a hiatus?) the podcast will also serve as someone to put down my thoughts etc, you can check it by clicking the page tabs above.

This week and next…

2011-12-11T22:03:00.001-08:00

Not a bad week, not great but not bad! As expected it was all about the bike and pool. I managed to get my 5000 yards in the pool done and even threw in an extra 50 yards for shits and giggles it took three trips to the pool and that seems manageable. At the suggestion of several people I have taken the plunge (no pun intended) and booked up some swimming lessons. I am still struggling with the heavy legs and even though my endurance is improving I need to work on my form, the idea being that I can build up through the rest of the year.

For the bike, all of the week was spent on the trainer humming along to Sufferfest rides, I clicked three off and also threw in an recovery ride before getting outside at the weekend. Family commitments meant I had to have a super early start on Saturday and it was a trade off between being safe in the dark and not freezing my ass off. Things got better when the sun came up and I clocked in 50 miles by 9:30am and that was enough to get me north of 100 for the week but I ended up a shy of my goal of 125…it will all come out in the wash by the end of the month. My miles are being accumulated on my road bike right now, I need to trade in the saddle on my Tri Bike as it is just not working out so I have two ISM Adamo’s coming to me next week for try-before-you-buy, these biggish mile weeks are the perfect time. I have a few more bits to figure out before I can really start cranking the miles in.

Finally I did get my running shoes on for a quick jaunt and that was it for the week.

109 miles on the bike (51 road/58 trainer)
5050 yards in the pool
4.3 mile run…told you it was a quick jaunt

Next week is going to be a challenge, my wife is out of town and then returns with my in laws for the Holidays and I am out of town for two days too, it’s that time of year I guess!

Drills and hills…

2011-12-04T18:20:00.001-08:00

So having set myself up with the target of pool yardage and bike mileage it is only fair that I report on my progress…blogging etc tends to keep you honest that way!

My week shook out pretty well, I was in the pool at 5:00 Tuesday, a mile later I got out. Thursday should have been the same but the fly in the ointment was my wife having a last minute trip to San Francisco which stopped me from hitting the pool in the morning so I dashed over at lunchtime for a quick 1000 yards. 2750 done total so far! Most of my swimming is continuous and with a Pull Buoy I am having issues with heavy legs which I am trying to address but I am doing drills to help my glide and catch and other swimming jargon that, like the water, is going over my head! A friend has offered to watch some video of me and suggested I take some lessons to reset the basics that I know. I have bumped into another swimmer at the pool several times who shares the penchant for the early mornings and they have given me several pointers which have helped as well. So come Saturday I was left with 2250 and that was always going to be a stretch. I managed 2000 yards Saturday morning so I ended the week with 4750; close but no cigar!

Heavy legs sinking down and apparently straight arms is a big no no too!

The bike was a bit easier and I set myself up on the trainer three mornings and one evening riding three Sufferfest rides and also a CycleFilm DVD which are all on sale now! Check them out here! By the time the weekend rolled around I was left with 59 miles to make my goal of 125. As is the usual modus operandi, this would mean an early start on Sunday morning so a good 4 hour ride would not eat into to too much of the day. I was out the door and in the saddle by 7:00am a little later than planed and it was freezing, layers of Pearl Izumi Thermals barely kept the cold at bay and the only break I got allowed my to remove my long fingered gloves and uncover my ears…that’s it!

Pacific Coast Highway…a favorite for cyclists, can’t think why, the view is terrible!

The plan was to ride through one of the canyons to Pacific Coast Highway head north and then sweep around and back home, this would leave a long hard climb around the 50 mile mark, I have only ridden it once well over a year ago and with a triple!

The ride was uneventful, the way I like them and the climb proved a challenge to say the least but I huffed and puffed up it and was very happy to get to the top with no dabbing…or flipping over backwards!

Totals for the week then:

4750 yards in the pool
131 miles on the bike
10 miles ran…a couple of little jaunts!

One week done…four to go!

Soundbites…

2011-12-03T09:55:00.001-08:00

A few things heard this week for anyone to ponder on while out training this weekend…

Perfect practice makes perfect – not practice make perfect, in other words don’t reinforce bad habits
Ride lots – Eddie Merckx response when asked how what was his advice to become a great cyclist
Train your weakness race your strengths – if you only train your strengths you'll only be good at what you are good at!

Be safe and train hard!

Review; The Sufferfest; Hell Hath no Fury!

2011-12-01T10:51:00.001-08:00

Like a woman scorned right! So put her on a carbon bike and tell her to go!

From the warped mind that brought Angels, Downward Spiral and A Very Dark Place comes their latest, ~~greatest~~ pain inducing video; Hell Hath no Fury!

Featuring an all women cast including riders from HTC, Garmin-Cervelo Rabobank and many National Teams there is never a dull moment, these ladies lay it down thick and fast!

A classic 2 x 20 workout the ride breaks down like this:

3:30 Warm-up
5:30 Stage 1: Easy, flat terrain at effort level of 6/10 with a few accelerations
20:00 Stage 2: Rolling terrain with a series of attacks as the pack tries to take the lead from you
6:00 Recovery
20:00 Stage 3: More rolling, attacking racing in which you try to break away to get the lead back
4:00 Recovery
3:30 Stage 4: Team Time Trial in which you have to crush yourself in order to take the lead
6:00 Recovery, featuring Mental Training Reflection

Nice aye…dare you come and play!

This rates as an 8/10 on the Sufferlandian scale of pain…something akin to having shutting your tongue in a door and walking backwards really fast while somebody strums the open bars of the House of the Rising Sun on it!

The 2 x 20 minutes do not fly by, they are not easy and there is no comfort. You are presented with riders who must weigh all of 100lbs soaking wet, who grit their teeth and ride breakaways like they are being chased by a pack of rabid zombies on Japanese crotch rockets, stand and climb hills so it looks like their legs are grape crushing in fast forward and descend like a gravity has been doubled!

It looks like this on the flipside!

In other news, the Minister of Scorn has developed a sense of humor and there is an enjoyable storyline to this video, assuming you can see between the tears. They have also increased their budget as the footage quality and editing skills have also improved...either that or they have gotten a bigger stick to hit the crew with!

Available for the wallet busting price of $11.99 you can pick this up now here, (affiliate link) or otherwise go mad (‘cos you would have to be not to) and pick up a full set of ‘fests for the killer price of $84.99 saving nearly $20 in the process

This product was purchased (yeah sick I know). If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

November’s numbers…

2011-11-30T21:42:00.000-08:00

November was all about race days and keeping it all together in between. As you may have read the Santa Clarita Marathon didn’t go quite to plan, that being said I did PR by 15 minutes with a 3:31 but was 16 minutes short of my goal of 3:15. Somebody suggested to me that a reducing it by 30 minutes was a bit much but if your goals are small your achievements are usually the same…either way I am over it and moving on.

Two weeks later I “re-newed” my ultra passport and had a wet, wild and wonderful time running the PCTR SMM 50k, you can read, well look at the pictures as I did not write a long report here. Recovery in between was as expected and was running 4 days after the marathon, albeit gingerly, and I spent the two weeks really just keep the wheels ticking over. I am a huge fan of compression clothing (during and after), chocolate milk and coconut water and I would say that these all contributed to my recovery…much more so than stretching of which I did none! After the 50k race I stayed out of my running shoes and donned fins and cycling shoes through to the end of the month

So as for the numbers, well down as expected.

214 total miles (-174 over October)

28:11 time, so about 7 hours a week (around a 3 hour per week loss)

86 miles running in 15:26 (September 160/21:26)

123 miles cycling in 7:52 ( September 219/13:40)

8,350 yards (11,200 in October, 5150 in September)

Remaining time was ~~stretching~~, ~~foam rolling~~, ~~P90X Ab Ripper~~ and a bit of ~~yoga~~! oops!

Longest ride 51 miles – 3:21 not the fastest ride but a nice hilly one

Longest run 31.6 – 7:35!

Starting weight 168lb ending 171.2b (from 187 at end of April)

Overall with tapers and recoveries I had 10 rest days, so when you consider that the above is only really for 3 weeks it isn’t quite so bad!

So onto December, as mentioned in a prior post this is a focus on the pool and bike I have a goal of 20,000 yards and 500 miles respectively between now and the end of the year. My first Triathlon is in 93 days!

Wordless Wednesday…yours is not the same?

2011-11-30T02:44:00.000-08:00

Really…?

Swim, Bike and Clif Bar winner

2011-11-27T20:41:00.001-08:00

All thing considered this was a quiet week…my legs found there way back to normal form around Wednesday after last weeks 50k. I avoided my running shoes and spent some time in the pool; 4000 yards and on the bike 51 miles (only one ride though), my climbing was steady but I need to work on my confidence descending and more importantly I need to get more miles on my Tri bike.

Still it was a pretty good lead into next week and in fact every week between now and the end of the year. I am aiming for 5000 yards in the pool and 125 miles on the bike a week to take me into Tri Training proper…I am still reviewing plans and trying to formulate my whole 2012 strategy but seeing as my weak area is the swim followed by the bike I think this is a sensible course of action, that and the fact that I have pretty much been on a running plan for the last 6 months and my legs need a rest.

I have also mapped out my 2012 races, my critical A race entries are secured; Vineman 70.3 and Ironman AZ and as it stands I have roughly a race every 60 days…but more on that later!

In other news Thomas is the winner of the Clif Bar giveaway, 4 tweets and blog comment gave him 5 out of a possible 6 entries so the odds were in his favor, congrats!

Get off your ass/arse!*

2011-11-26T16:47:00.001-08:00

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

Thanks to Lindsay for the original Posting

*apply as applicable in the US, Canada, NZ vs. UK, Australia and thanks to Kelownagurl, (Canada) JayDub (Australia) and Louise (New Zealand) for confirming what get said where! Gotta love Twitter!

Cyber Monday come early…

2011-11-25T03:28:00.000-08:00

Just a few things that arrived in my in-box, I thought I would share the love…treat someone you love, treat yourself…hell, treat me!

Click on image to go to site

Review; Clif Bars (Apricot, Peanut Toffee, Coconut Choc Chip)

2011-11-24T07:34:00.001-08:00

As is the usual way I am behind the curve, in other words late these have been in the stores for a while but you may have missed them and if so let this be the prompt you need. And so on with the review.

So we have all heard of Clif Bars right, chewy, yummy goodness, great for on the go, road, trail, good for pre run, post run, day time, night time, any time! OK enough of that.

So apparently the flavor distilling techno weenie geeks in at Clif have been distilling flavor goodness down (I said distilling twice didn't I), sealing it in little bars, putting the bars in little bags and then sending them out to lazy ass bloggers like me! (oops sorry guys)!

So this was what was sent to me:

Apricot; has that late summer flavor and always reminds me of some time spent relaxing and vacationing in Greece and Turkey but you can use them for crushing it on the bike or run! Moist, yummy and tart!

Peanut Toffee; Friday night at the movies or walking through the County Fair, this one is mildly crunchy with that caramel (not "carmel" which is a small town in California!?!) flavor, almost like nutty buttery popcorn but much much nicer

Coconut Choc Chip; OMG last year I went mad for the Iced Gingerbread which is also available right now and was reviewed here, well this is as good as that, Coconut, chocolate need I go on!!!

So here is the upside I have a sample box of two of each of these to pass on , if you are reading this you stand a pretty good chance of winning. Usual rules apply.

Mention this competition on your blog gets you 1 entry

Tweet “I just entered the @Quadrathon giveaway for some @ClifBar yumminess you can too at http://tinyurl.com/7ol29u3” will get you another, tweet it once a day for up to 4 entries between today and Sunday

Leave a comment here telling me what you have done and you’ll get another 1 entry, so there you go, up to 6 entries to win and if you’re lucky I “might” throw in one of my prized Iced Ginger bars which are in stores now!

I will draw the winner on Sunday!

Talking of stores, something I found out if you buy bars at Whole Foods by the box you get a 10% discount… I didn’t know that, that’s actually a better deal than at Trader Joes!

This product was provided by Clif Bar If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com

PCTR Santa Monica Mountain’s 50k

2011-11-23T00:20:00.001-08:00

This is the 4th time in 5 years I have run this race (albeit once was the 30k) and the missed year I volunteered! It was my first ultra back in 2007 and this year it marked my 10th ultra start (first in two years) and 8th finish!

The race is pretty simple 5 hills looping over two valleys and a plateau, each hill is 3 miles up and 3 miles down for an elevation gain/loss of roughly 1000’, in between the hills you accumulate a mile of flat to get your 31 miles or 50k and that is basically it, you start, you run, you walk, you finish..simple.

PCTR as always put on a great event, well organized but low key, professional but friendly…and a chance to catch up with some friends; Emil, Billy and Dave were there along with some local Ultra glitteratti include Jimmy, Keira and Dom.

I’ll spare you the 1000 words race report, suffice to say, it was wet, dirty, fun and lasted a good seven plus hours, four or more of which were in the rain!

This is the same as 30%, 20%, 10% chance of sunshine right???

My camera lasted two hills and died so I have stolen photos along the way, non credits are my photos.

Race brief from Sara; Gortex to flesh, it’s very colorful crowd!

Me; clean, tidy and cold! (pic Emil)

The start of Hill 1

Back down Hill 1; Trail or River Run (pic Dave)

My friend Yoli going down Hill 2; it was a bit muddy here (pic Deo)

A break in the weather on the plateau of Hill 4…it didn’t last!

PCTR Santa Monica Mountains Highlights from Billy on Vimeo.

More Video from Dave

It wasn’t an easy day but like anything if you have the right mindset you can make it fun…as you tell by all the smiles!

Onward…

OMFG!

2011-11-21T11:30:00.001-08:00

Check out the Time Stamp on the email…it sold out in less than 10 minutes!

Wordless Wednesday…first this, then that!

2011-11-16T23:03:00.001-08:00

Sunday…

2012…

Friday funnies…

2011-11-11T19:34:00.001-08:00

Santa Clarita Marathon

2011-11-07T19:23:00.001-08:00

Usually things come in halves, this race came in roughly quarters, three on the front end and one on the back end…and so on with the show!

Pouring rain, not LA Marathon 2010 pouring but nevertheless wet enough to merit a NorthFace jacket for at least the first two hours of the race accompanied me as I wound my way along, up, over, back, down, through and around Santa Clarita. Ironically the rain didn’t make it cold, it was the wind that blew the rain away that then made things cold, but wasn’t the weather that killed my race.

Nor was it my nutrition or hydration, in fact I was so well hydrated that I stopped to pee, although it did cross my mind to just go while moving but I avoided that. I am not sure but I do think I took on several liters through absorbtion!

Nope what got to me was the good old fashioned classic wall!

My target was sub 3:15 a BQ, my training plan predicted a 3:08 which was always going to be too fast so I was aiming for a 7:15 pace which would give me a 3:10 finish and some wiggle room for the 3:15 which was a 7:26 pace.

Miles 1-8 in 57: 03 an average 7:07 pace; no problems, my pace was solid, it varied according the terrain, which was deceptively rolling.

Miles 9-16 in 1:56: 21 pace dropped to an average 7:16 still on target, rain had eased and stopped, I stopped to take a stone out of my shoe.

Mile 17-20 in 32:36, now the pace was slowing fast; for average for these four miles was 8:09 and overall I was at 7:26.

Then BOOM! the wall…I plugged away for another couple of miles to 22 and with that I was toast!

Mile 23…8:58, Mile 24…9:13…Mile 25 9:40 and with the smell of the finish Mile 26 11:28 (WTF!!!) a couple of wiggly bits to make up the .20 and it was all over bar the screaming…mostly from my quads, with some background from a hip.

So what went wrong, well let’s talk about that, truth is I went out a bit fast, but only a bit, yeah the weather was bad, but not that bad and maybe an extra gel might have helped…maybe.

The truth is, as best I can tell, is my long runs were not as many or as long as they should have been, I did three 20 milers, one slow to cover the distance and two at not race pace (one was +20 and the other +15). The success I had with the Half Marathon training had me training at either race pace or race distance albeit that was my own deviation from the plan but one that paid off and I just didn’t have that this time around, I personally believe that at least one more 20 ideally a 22 miler and a 23/24 was needed, the bridge from 20 to 26 at the pace I want/need is just to0 big a gap to bridge without training runs.

Now the question is what to do in the Spring (or sooner) now I know (think I know) what the problem was! Surf City is an option in early February, given that potentially my first Tri is not until March…ugh well right now growing my legs back in time for my 50K in two weeks is my priority!

Anyway it was not all bad news, I did PR, taking nearly 15 minutes off of my Marathon PR which I have had since June 2007 and I was 47/390 OA and 14/44 in my AG!

That's three PRs out of the last three races so I must be doing something right!

Onwards…

Nuts!

2011-11-05T08:49:00.001-07:00

I knew I would have to register early, last year this race sold out in four days, this year the organizers guessed at 48 hours…registration opened on November 1st at 9am, I was done by 9:30am by noon it was sold out; three hours THREE HOURS!!!

When I looked again around 3pm there was 750 people on the waitlist! Like I said Nuts!

This has me really worried about being able to register for IMAZ the day after race day on November 21st…oh didn’t I mention I was doing an Ironman next year? Lets hope Nuts is an adjective not an expletive come the 21st!

October’s training; the last big push…

2011-11-02T07:15:00.001-07:00

October was really the last big push for my two November races, the first of which is this weekend. While the numbers may not look huge the month really consisted of three build weeks with a rest week in the middle and my taper started last week so the training was pretty intense in the “up” weeks.

Distance vs. Time for the last five weeks

388 total miles (+63 over September)
42:29 time, so about 10 hours a week (around a 3 hour per week gain)
160 miles running in 21:26 (September 151/20:47)
219 miles cycling in 13:40 ( September 171/9:45)
11,200 yards (5150 in September) what is worrying is this what I have to look forward to on a weekly basis
Remaining time was stretching, foam rolling, P90X Ab Ripper and a bit of yoga!
Longest ride 41 miles – 2:28 not the fastest ride but a nice hilly one
Longest run 19.00 – 2:21, this was a real confidence booster, Marathon Pace +15 seconds
Starting weight 167lb ending 168lb (from 187 at end of April)
Two rest days…last one was 9/8!

With race day on Sunday I have one more run, an easy three miler, a massage and packet pick and then I am done and not a moment soon enough, I can feel my body starting to flirt with overtraining symptoms so have eased right off the gas this week. Of course everyone in the house is semi sick so I am in full on germ paranoia mode too!

My immediate concern is to free off my neck, I am hoping to see a chiropractor today or tomorrow…other than that the hay is in the barn!

Wordless Wednesday…

2011-10-26T04:15:00.000-07:00

One season ends….another starts!

Following the links…

2011-10-19T00:13:00.001-07:00

Sometimes for fun I see who has been referring to my blog or linking to it…it’s pretty straightforward thanks to Sitemeter, many are familiar and a lot are for some of the things I have reviewed, my Review of the Asics Kayanos 16s accounts for 10% of my traffic and the shoe is nearly 3 years old! Some of them leave me wondering so I follow them:

Usually it obvious as to what the link is hooked to, “Quadrathon” or in fact the name Stuart are not that common…this time I had to spend some time looking for it…

I have highlighted the link. you may have to squint to read it…but it says: “I don’t know how triathletes find the time to train this much?”, and so the question was where does it link to?

Well here…

I guess I really had better do one now if that's what people are calling me!

Monster week…

2011-10-16T20:21:00.001-07:00

With three weeks to go before race day this was the last build week my so called “Monster week” before I ease off and downswing into taper. I had the target of 15 hours training, 100 miles on the bike, 50 miles running and 2 miles in the pool. Monday was Columbus Day in the US and I was fortunate to have the day off from work, that tied in really nicely as the weekend prior was spent wandering around Sea World in San Diego and had had to miss my long run so I just spilled it over into the Monday…that and the fact that my wife and kids did not get the day off.

So Monday I was up and out early a’la my usual 5am start and hit the local sidewalks for a 15 mile long tempo run

15m @ MP+15 (7:24)

With two days off, albeit walking around Sea World this was solid run, was "within" myself for the whole run which is displayed in my average HR data

After a quick clean up I headed out on my bike riding a favorite loop that has some steady climbing; 41 miles and 2:28 later I switched bikes and headed out on my new slice for a quick hour to start the transition to aero, here is the new steed, I still need a few bells and whistles but there is no rush. Suffice to say it feels very very different!

With that done it was off to the pool, I had hoped for 2100 yards but as is often the case I was short of time so I had to cut it in half…Day 1, 71 miles!

Tuesday I had Intervals, a nice sensible set of 10 x 400s the actual full set was 2 m w/u 10x400@5:40 w/400mRI 1m c/d
After yesterday's big day I knew this was going to be hard...and I wasn't disappointed! Only one sub 6:00 split everything else was around the 6:15 mark, it was a long hard set and I was happy to walk most of the rest intervals!

Wednesday back on the bike for an early ride, 28 miles done and home by 6:30am, the full moon added some much needed extra light but I was ginger on the descents, finally with enough sunlight I could pick up the pace and push a little harder on the flats. I was working at my local office which is 6 miles from home and 6 miles from my gym so for lunchtime I ducked out and hit the pool for a quick 1050 yards.

Thursday I eased right off the gas and took a recovery run for time, 9 miles in nearly 90 minutes, like they say make you hard days hard and your easy days easy.

Friday back on the training plan for a short tempo (although some might argue 8 miles is not a short run) 8m @MP (7:09) The numbers don't really reveal the level of effort needed for this, it was way harder then it should have been, a good sign that the week was catching up with me! But that's the whole point of training right...train hard - race easy!!

Saturday back to the pool drills and laps for 1250 yards some even without all my floaty bits; fins, paddles, pull buoy etc!

Sunday…oh Sunday, I started to not look forward to this from Thursday onwards, 20 miles at MP +15 which equals 7:23. I fell asleep on the sofa and finally went to bed around 11:30 with the alarm set for 5:30, the plan being out the door by 6:00am and back by 8:30 for present opening for our 4 y/o whose Birthday it was today. I hit snooze once too often and got out at 6:10am, two hours and twenty one minutes later I walked back in with 19 miles on my Garmin, those snoozed 10 minutes my nemesis. To avoid a complete hard stop (and evitable lock up of everything below the waist) I put my bike on the trainer and jumped on for a quick 45 minutes and a slow 10 miles just to flush the junk out my legs, which worked as I got off feeling 100% better than when I had gotten on! Here’s the 20, 19 deets:

As you can see I was 3 seconds off my target pace per miles but the good news was that I was 10 seconds faster than my last 20 miler two weeks ago and I was well within myself. So here is the final tally for the week:

59:38 miles run in 7:55

3300’ (1.875 miles) yards swam in 1:40

92.36 miles ridden in 5:59

All in 153.61 miles in 15:42, right now I feel pretty good, maybe better than I should but whose counting, I would say that my idea worked and while I missed a couple of my goals it was only just and I more than made up for them on the sidewalk!

Next week my wife is out of town so it’s going to be bike heavy with lots of trainer miles and squeezing in runs at the gym when I can, but with three weeks to go till race day it’s time to start the downswing, I don’t do that well with tapering usually but right now it’s looking pretty good!

Thursday Funnies

2011-10-13T04:28:00.001-07:00

…just like Mum said!

Review; Furman Institute of Running & Scientific Training (FIRST) HM plan

2011-10-07T22:17:00.001-07:00

This is the not the first review (no pun intended) of a FIRST plan, I wrote about my experiences and success using the 10k plan in February last year and up until July this year my 5k PR from November 2008 was attained by poaching a lot of the interval workouts from the FIRST marathon plan.

At the risk of not reinventing the wheel a lot of what I have written here I have talked about before but for some readers this will be new.

The FIRST Plans are captured in the Runner’s World Book Run Less Run Faster. So as a reminder the basics of the plan are three runs a week; Intervals, a short Tempo and long Tempo run, interspersed with cross training for which I used cycling I also threw in a smattering of core work and some comfortably paced recovery runs

The basic science behind the plan is that the volume of running is decreased but the intensity of the runs is increased. Each run is designed to improve vo2Max; the measure of an athlete’s ability to produce energy aerobically; through the use of oxygen. Increasing Lactate Threshold; Lactate is an organic byproduct of anaerobic metabolism; an improvement in the LT is an improvement in the muscles ability to do endurance work. Finally an improvement in running economy is expected, running economy is expressed either as a velocity achieved for a given rate of oxygen consumption or the vo2 needed to maintain a given speed. Improvement in running economy generally takes the longest period of time for measurable improvement.

As you can already see this is different from you typical plan which tends to have a long(ish) slow run at the weekend, comparatively all of these runs are fast. So the first question is how fast, well there are a lot of tables, each run is based on a different pace and the pace is derived from a recent 5k race time. I initially used my existing 5k race time and then with a month to go before race day I used my new PR which was 30 seconds faster at 19:11. I made a couple of substantial modifications; I cut the plan short by 5 weeks from 18 to 13 to coincide with Race Day and changed two runs at the end to simulate race pace.

So lets look at some results:

Week 1 Day 1 400m intervals

Week 13 Day1 400m intervals the last week)

That’s a decrease of somewhere between 10-17 seconds per 400 meters or 40-68 seconds per mile. Here are some stats from the Short Tempo runs:

Week 1 Day 3 2 mile warm up 3 miles at tempo 1 mile cool down

Week 10 Day 3 1 mile warm up 5 miles at tempo 1 mile warm down

Less than a minute and a little over a mile longer, some things to note in the data, ‘cos a I nerd like that. Heart Rate is consistent but look at the cadence, significantly faster turnover. And the final result, Race Day:

Went out too fast and kinda lost it in the last three miles but hung onto the end! Now all the quantitative data let’s talk about the qualitative:

Pro’s

Good for people who like a very structured training plan
It’s ultimately not super high mileage even with additional runs I maxed at 49 miles in a week, most weeks were late 30s early 40s
It’s very rewarding, speed work, in my opinion, is instant gratification
You really can measure your improvements and progress
It works…kinda obvious really but the results do speak for themselves
With only three prescribed runs a week you have some flexibility although they recommend a day in between each runs
Speed opens you up to injury although sensible cross training helps mitigate the risks

Cons

It’s not easy be prepared to work hard
It’s probably not a plan for someone who complete rather than compete
It’s very structured, each run has a specific goal, pace distance etc
You have to be a bit of a data junkie
While not essential investing in a Garmin really helps
You need to have a pretty solid base for the HM plan, don’t expect to jump in deep out of the gate
It can get a bit boring, essentially each week is the same

So there you have it…I have to say I am very pleased with the results, I reduced my Half Marathon from 1:37:32 to 1:28:41…that’s a big drop for a 13 week investment! My 10k was reduced by over 3 minutes last year, I took 30 seconds off my 5k time and it looks like I will be making a dent in my Marathon PR next month!

If you are looking for some more info you can hear Bill Pierce one of the authors of the book being interviewed on the Run Run Live Podcast here and a follow up interview on the same Podcast with yours truly as a case study talking about my results here.

Now with all of that being said I do believe that this plan was only one leg of a three legged stool, the second being my transition to midfoot striking and the third being my shift into Newton shoes…more on those to follow.

Just to qualify…

2011-10-04T06:55:00.001-07:00

A couple of people emailed me about my last post, which was nice seeing as I have been such a crappy blogger (writer and commenter) this year I wasn’t sure anyone read it anymore! Anyway they wanted me to qualify my comment about times.

I wrote a couple of conflicting statements;

“My plan actually called for Marathon pace +30 which gave me a target of 7:39…” indicating my pace would be 7:09

and

… “when I “need” to average 7:23…oh well in two weeks I get to do it all again!”

The truth is that yes according to my 5k time of 19:11 the FIRST plan establishes a pace of 7:09 and predicts a marathon time of 3:07, to be honest that scares the bejesus out of me! That being said a 7:23 pace would give my a finishing time of 3:14, enough to make the qualifying time of 3:15 for Boston by 1 minute. Under the new rules that does not guarantee me an entry as it is now fastest come first served:

To be honest running Boston was never on my radar although I can see the appeal. For me qualifying for the New York Marathon, which I did in August at this race (running a sub1:30 Half Marathon guarantees me a Masters entry)

and Boston in the same year has the cache. Now as to whether I run them in 2012 and 2013 we will have to see…I have some other fish to fry before then.

15s and 20s

2011-10-02T20:37:00.001-07:00

I ran my second 20 miler this morning, I have one left to do in two weeks time and I did my first one two weeks ago. The first I ran just to cover the distance and make sure I could, it was the longest I had run all year and it was a good mental check mark to give me a confidence booster than my legs had the miles in them…they did and my average pace was 9:03.

Last weekend I had a 15 miler, a reduction in distance but an increase in speed. It actually went really well, really really well, I was ahead of my pace from the get go and stayed there for the entire run, finishing with a pace of 7:07

Today I had to combine them both, a quick pace and the 20 mile distance. My plan actually called for Marathon pace +30 which gave me a target of 7:39, as with all of these runs I tend to freak myself out with them, sometimes for no reason and others well for no reason too! Although this has been a big build week, nearly 11 hours and lot of cycling as well as my usual three training runs; intervals, short tempo and today’s long tempo. So that being said I hit the ground early to avoid the heat and to be back in time for things at home, my pace wasn’t fast and I was conscious about consistent pacing and running within myself. The first 15 miles went well and it’s not like the wheels cam off it was just that I felt the last five miles.

Yeah you can really see the last five miles..worrying a little given that there is another six after that and even more so when I “need” to average 7:23…oh well in two weeks I get to do it all again!

Tonight I’ll sleep well and tomorrow is a rest day…first one since September 4th!

Review; DIY Overhead Bike Rack

2011-10-01T22:05:00.001-07:00

This is not a review per se but I thought I would share with you my solution for storing my bike(s). If like me you have little storage space and have some little people who let’s say can’t tell the difference between carbon and Crayola and will gladly push over your hard saved for precious to get their big bag of sand toys then there is only one direction to go…up!

Enter a trip to Home Depot…

…and $25 later we’re all set. Now I should caveat that this will only work out of the gate if you have exposed rafters, if you have a sheetrocked ceiling this is possible but will need a little extra work. For this to work you need two Husky Hangs Alls and two rubber straps with S hooks…and unless you are really really tall a step ladder.

Now quite simply you throw one of the straps over the rafter, space out the other and do the same, depending on how high you want to go make it wider. From there thread one rubber strap around the seat and the other around the stem, be a little careful with the hooks, if you are paranoid wrap them in electrician tape. No drilling, no nuts, bolts or screws…nada!

Lift up, hook through and voila!

Subject to the amount of space you have you can hang as many as you like. It may not be the prettiest of solutions but there is zero set up time and with the $205 dollars you saved thing abut what kit you will need for the winter, an upgrade or two or something carbon and sexy!

September in the bag…

2011-09-30T21:31:00.001-07:00

My numbers are on the upswing again, mostly from being back on the bike, throwing some swimming into the mix; a sign of things to come!

325 total miles (+109 over August)
35:07 time, so about 7 hours a week (around a 90 minute per week gain)
151 miles running in 20:47 (August 149/20:28)
171 miles cycling in 9:45 ( August 59/3:38)
5150 yards (zero in June, July and August) swimming….yes swimming
Remaining time was stretching, foam rolling, P90X Ab Ripper and a bit of yoga!
Longest ride 35 miles – 1:50 back to back Sufferfests
Longest run 20.25 – 3:03
Starting weight 166.8lb ending 167lb (from 187 at end of April)
Three rest days…last one was 9/4!

A couple of notable highs, I nailed my marathon pace 15 miler, finishing it in 1:47, pulled in a couple of 10 milers at a 7:00 pace, I am getting closer and closer to clocking a sub 6:00 mile…haven’t done that in nearly 30 years and my average running pace for the entire month was 7:12! On the bike I rode back-to-back Sufferfests and talking of which I was inducted in the Sufferlandrian National Team...go team!

And so October begins…

Review; The Sufferfest A Very Dark Place

2011-09-29T22:07:00.001-07:00

At face value A Very Dark Place would be a fitting description of my pain locker; a quiet house, I’m in the garage, the lights are off, it’s o’dark o’clock, the reflection of my Garmin providing that ghostly illumination of the grimace on my face as I adopt that 1000 yard stare gazing deep into the monitor with images that taunt me…

However the really dark place is the tunnel that your are led down with another ass kicking ride from the Sufferfest. This time it breaks ~~you~~ down like this:

5:00 warm-up, with Asian racing footage from a member of the OCBC-Singapore National Team
2×30 sprints, from start line of the OCBC Cycle Singapore professional criterium
1:30 rest, because we’re not totally merciless
5 x 4:00 sprints- with 3:00 rest between each interval. Each interval features pro-racing:
- Solo breakaway in Paris-Nice
- Small group breakaway in Fleche-Wallone
- Joining Gilbert and the Schlecks as they attack in Liege-Bastogne-Liege
- Following Cancellara – and trying to beat him – in Paris-Roubaix
- Holding onto Wiggins and crew in Criterium du Dauphine
4:00 recovery with some vintage cycling footage

Footage as always is a mix of the best classics; local crits and some breathtaking vistas for the rest intervals. The ~~joy~~, the ~~nice thing~~, the masochistic reality of each interval is that they each ask you for something different, climbs, sprints, breakaways, pursuits, attacks, bridging from the peloton to the leaders, there is a little bit of everything for everyone to generate that bitter, acidic, metallic taste in you mouth! In addition to classic races and scenery you get to hang out with the big boys; Phillipe Gilbert, Fabian Cancellara, Thor Hushovd and Bradley Wiggins.

IWBMATTKYAT!

Seriously though as the nights (at least in the northern hemisphere) close in and cyclists, triathletes and runners are relegated to their garages, dens, spare bedrooms or pain lockers the option for engaging, effective and realistically priced training on their ever most favorite piece of equipment; the trainer.The Sufferfest provides all of these with a nice bow on! Easily downloaded, although be patient it’s nearly a 3GB data file, you can be up and riding in less that 10 minutes from parting with the $12.00.

AVDP is the seventh video from the Sufferfest and, as with the preceding six, asks something different from you…the question is can you answer?

Wordless Wednesday…ouch!

2011-09-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday…did you log today?

2011-09-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Weekends are for shopping right…

2011-09-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Got me some of these…

Ordered up one of these…

Unpacked this which has been under my bed for 6 months…

Oh and snagged one of these too, ex-demo <100 miles -$800 discount = no brainer…

In case you’re wondering; yes it does have these…

Oh dear what have I done…

ClipE Winner

2011-09-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

Quick Fanfare….

And the winner is Kirstie! Drop me a line with you address etc to quadrathon (@) gmail (dot) com and they will go out in the mail

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-07T06:55:00.001-07:00

I am speechless…

Review; Jack Black Dragon Ice

2011-09-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

We’ve all been there, achy, tired, heavy legs and we have all looked for the cure-all that will put some pep in our step for the next work out, so when I got an email from Jack Black about Dragon Ice I admit I bit and contacted them asking for a sample to try (and review) well that and the fact that the name sounded pretty cool! I fully expected to receive an iddybiddy sample size so I was delighted to get a life size 4oz tube of it!

Not wanting to waist any time I immediately lost it! Two weeks later I found it in our kid’s coloring cubby, mistakenly tidied away but used as paint! So from there I started to use it. I would usually use it at the end of the day, even though most of my training is in the early morning come the end of the day, my legs were still feeling tired. I shifted to then using it sparingly in the mornings.

On application the first thing you notice is the smell, menthol, now it is pretty strong but it does dissipate quickly and personally I like it so it’s not an issue. The other great thing is a little goes a long way; a quarter size squirt is enough for quads and knees a nickel for calves. It goes on easily is not oily or greasy and is quickly absorbed so sheets or clothes are spared. As with anything like this I suggest you wash you hands afterwards just in case you have the errant rubbing of the eye (or other sensitive areas) sometime later!

So it smells nice, is not messy but does it work? Well for me yes, I cannot claim that the restorative powers provide speed or endurance but it makes my muscles feel better, the immediate effect is a little hard to describe as it is not your typical heat or hot/cold but it is more or a warm numbing that seems to allow the muscles to relax more and from there I can go at it again the next day so for me that’s a winner!

In terms of the contents, they are listed below from Jack Black’s website:

Menthol warms to help soothe muscle aches and pains.
Dragon’s Blood (Croton Lechleri Resin), a dark red resin from the Upper Amazon, works to reduce inflammation, provides antibacterial and rich antioxidant benefits to fortify skin and protect it against environmental stress.
Beta-Glucan provides antioxidant and immune boosting benefits.
Canadian Willowherb has natural anti-inflammatory and anti-irritant properties.
MSM (Dimethyl Sulfone) helps naturally combat joint and muscle pain, and improve physical function.

One thing that specifically appealed was the healthiness of it’s ingredients all of which are certified organic, for the vegan they are certified vegan and for those of you with sensitive skin it is dermatologically tested.

A 4oz tube retails for $22.00 and is available through multiple Main Street retailers you can also pick it up through their website where if you spend $50 you get free shipping.

This product was provided by Jack Black (and Julia) free of charge. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

August Deets!

2011-09-02T22:40:00.001-07:00

Slipped off the wagon this month, it was, to be honest, expected, a combination of 17 days of travel and taper were the culprits.

216 total miles (-272 over July)
28:04 time, so about 7 hours a week (around a 5 hour per week loss)
149 miles (July 197 miles) running in 20:28 (July 27:59)
58 miles (June 287miles) cycling in 3:38 (July 17:23)
Remaining time was stretching, foam rolling etc and I am also trying to get to the P90X Ab Ripper workout 3 times a week, I managed only 3 times this month
Longest ride 25 miles – 1:30
Longest run 13.1 – 1:28 (A Race)
Starting weight 168lb ending 166.8lb (from 187 at end of April)
Nine rest days…well I was on vacation for 10 days!

Wow now I have written it down that was quite some difference, but in all fairness it was all targeted towards my A race and my goal which was achieved. So with mission accomplished I am mixing it up a bit. According to my training bible I should be able to run a 3:09 marathon…I am not so sure but I think I could land somewhere between 3:20 and 3:30 and to be honest with the HM training in the bank I am shifting focus onto the Marathon.

Now this means that I need to look at what I had planned so I am nixxing the Eco Marathon, to be honest it was an expensive race to enter and the hotel and boat trip only made it more so so for around 50% I am all signed up for:

Training started this week…here we go again!

Lazy tourist!

2011-08-31T21:31:00.001-07:00

Lindsay rightly pointed out that there were no photos from my London trip so here are a few…places in order.

London’passing through, Hampton Court, Howletts Zoo, Canterbury and surround, Whytecliffe on Sea, London; Natural History Museum, London Eye, Thames Trip, Covent Garden, Bus Tour….2 days traveling and 8 days on the ground, family friends, tourist stuff…done!

UK trip August 2012

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

None are great, they are all taken with my iPhone and/or Instagram or Hipstermatic…like I said lazy tourist!

Half Marathon of the Harbors

2011-08-29T22:16:00.001-07:00

I’ll keep this short as I have written a lot in recent months about my training…well when I have written! That being said I will say my training has gone very well and even with 10 days in London, (did I mention I went to London), with the exception of a cutting 4 weeks out of the plan for it to coincide with Race Day and adding a 5k race to rebaseline my paces I have hit every run on the training plan head on. Four the five weeks prior to my vacation I upped my training volume to include cycling and more recovery runs to increase the mileage to the mid to high 40’s, during the vacation week and the week after I scaled back and focused on the three training runs only and getting to bed early enough to overcome the jet lag.

Additionally I threw in two simulated training runs, did a course recce (although that would prove to be geographically embarrassing), lost 21lbs even with a vacation and practiced my hydration and nutrition plan which was zero input; no gels, no drink although I took a cup of water to cool off around mile 10. So while there are never any guarantees and while I stood on the start line a nervous panda I had put ticks in all the boxes I owned. The one that I couldn’t control and was of major concern was the weather; a late heatwave has gripped the local area and temperatures where pretty high; the thermometer in my car hit 118f on Saturday and the forecasts where for it to continue, the only saving grace was the race start was at 7:00am!

So Sunday morning I stood one row back from the starting line and with a 3, 2, 1, go we went! Obviously I went out too fast! but I found my stride and focused on running my race and racing the clock rather then racing anyone else. To be honest that was way of the race, there was some cat and mousing with other runners on course but I had set my Garmin with a pace alert range of 6:40-6:55, I needed 6:52 to hit the target time of sub 1:30. The sun proved to not be as big an issue as the route I had recced soon deviated through a residential street and so I enjoyed the long shadows cast by apartment buildings etc.

I knew that come mile 10 I was on borrowed time and that proved true as my pace tailed off as you can see from the splits below, miles 10, 11 and 12 were long well at least 7-15 seconds too long but by then I had just enough in the reserve tank to carry me through

A re-focussed effort for the last mile and when turned the last corner I could see the Finish, as I neared I saw the clock had 1:2x but someone’s head obscured the third digit and in the closing meters I saw 1:28:41 and that was that...done!

Final details: 1:28:41 OA 19/440 AG 5/51 File me under Happy Panda.

First half: 44:01 second half 44:40 no negative split thrown by slowing off in miles 10, 11 and 12 from being 33 seconds off pace…numbers junkie, yeah you bet!

Beyond my results this was a great local race, low key and relaxed but well organized, a regularly updated website and emails as the event neared, the results were posted overnight. The course was great with some great beach views, mile markers and ample well stocked and supported aid stations…seems simple enough but these thing are easily and often overlooked!

I will be writing up more extensively on the training plan and on my transition to mid foot running in Newton shoes which I am sure contributed to this result.

Review; The ClipE

2011-08-26T06:46:00.001-07:00

Sometimes the most simple of things are overlooked, if like me, and the majority of runners, cyclists, triathletes, gym rats (the list kinda goes on), you wear an iPod, let’s just call it that but I know it could be a mp3 player, an iPhone, Blackberry etc when you work out there is often the issue of cable management. With the best will in the world they do tend to get caught up on things, sometime resulting in the most unceremonious “pop” as your earbud is forcefully extracted…sometimes it’s a little more extreme, see the video below!

Enter The ClipE, put simple this little device attaches to your headphone cables and then to your shirt, vest or even your hat/visor and avoids that flaying flapping cable.

Seems too simple right! Well like I say sometimes simple does. To use you feed the cables through until they are in place after that you “clip” it to and voila you’re all set.

And that ladies and gentlemen is simple!

Just to reinforce the point

Available online through Amazon for $7.95 you can choose a fancy schmancy design one or plain and simple colored, there are 9 to choose from!

So with my readers in mind I have one to give away. It will come as no surprise that the usual things will get you an entry.

Show them some love on Facebook will get you an entry, follow them on Twitter and tweeting this message gets you another;

I have just entered the @Quadrathon contest to win a @myclipe you can too at http://bit.ly/o6x148

Add a link on your blog to this post for a third. Leave a comment below telling what you’ve done (honor system folks) and I will draw a winner this coming Sunday and get it in the mail as soon as I have winners addresses!

Have fun!

This product was provided by Amna at Mocha7 Media If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

Race week!

2011-08-23T17:25:00.001-07:00

Holy crap it’s here 12 weeks of training completed, some 526 miles to date…I spare you all the numbers but this coming Sunday I will be on the go line ready to well…go! I have another couple of “training” runs to complete the plan along with a recovery run and I am done! I fully expect there to be an ever increasing colony of butterflies as the week progresses. I think that this is actually the first time I have a really specific goal that I have trained towards specifically, previously they have been filed under “just finish” or “better than the last time” so it’s going to be an interesting race.

Looking back on the training the ingredients are all there, I consistently followed the training plan, cutting it short to coincide with race day was the only really major deviation, of the three specific runs; intervals, short tempo and long tempo. Other minor changes were some of the paces to simulate race day and actually having a race to dial in my final month of training.

The progress has been measurable though, a new 5k PR (-31 seconds) and a new (u/o) 10m PR (-3:15 minutes). The race simulations proved very useful, the first was not so good and reminded me that I needed to check the weather and adjust things to allow for the change in temperature, the second, actually run on 10m of the course (as best I could tell) proved very successful and a healthy dose of race day nerves should allow me to dial it down to the target pace.

So all that remains is packet pick up on Friday and to set the alarm for Sunday morning!

Course Recce…

2011-08-06T23:28:00.001-07:00

Headed out to recce the race course for my A race at the end of the month. Had a 10 miler on tap, so decided to combine race and course simulation. Weather was perfect, cloudy cool, slight breeze. Everything just fell into place:

Started to feel it around mile 9, after a too quick mile 8 I think and had a stitch during mile 10 but that was going by the time I hit 10 miles. This is my fastest 10 miler evah! And is a good 4 minutes faster than my previous fastest 10 miles, this is also 1 second per mile faster than I need to get my target 1:29:59.

Very, very happy with this run and if the course and conditions are the same as today on race day..well the planets could just align!

July’s digits…

2011-08-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

Another solid month, actually if truth be told I am really pleased with this month:

487 total miles (+123 over June)
49:26 time, so about 12 hours a week (just under +2:00 per week over June)
197 miles (June 177 miles) running in 27:59 (June 25:37)
287 miles (June 177miles) cycling in 17:23 (June 10:54)
Remaining time was stretching, foam rolling etc and I am also trying to get to the P90X Ab Ripper workout 3 times a week, I managed 8 times this month, but I am seeing some results
Longest ride 58 miles – 3:21
Longest run 19.59 – 3:28 (trail)
Starting weight 173lb ending 168lb (from 187 at end of April)
Three rest days

I raced two races this month, a July 4th 5k which was a family run so that doesn’t really count and last weekend’s 5k where I set a new PR of 19:11, this will allow me to recalibrate my training paces for the FIRST plan that I am following, I also race simulated the Half Marathon distance, it didn’t go quite as planned but I took note of the issues that arose and most of these can be easily addressed.

I have four weeks left to race day so I now need to really dial things in, I am on vacation overseas for 10 days in the middle of August which may prove problematic but hopefully I can stay on the straight and narrow and avoid the vacation dieting disaster’s that we all seem to encounter! I am now actually at my target race weight, I floats about a bit, mostly down after exercise, it’s been as low as 162lb, I am looking to strip a few more off to around the 165lb mark…anyway enough about my weight I am actually boring myself!

The end is in sight!

Citrus Classic Zest for Life 5k

2011-07-31T22:35:00.001-07:00

I think quite possibly this will go down as the oddest race I have ever run…but I will get to that in a minute. I hadn’t planned on running a race before my target Half Marathon at the end of August but I have been on or under my target training paces and I also needed the confidence booster so I signed up on late Thursday, strangely this was the only race across three counties, LA, Orange and Ventura, an almost perfect storm!

Despite less than stellar reviews on active.com I was out of choices, that being said I was really there on my own agenda and set my expectations of the event low. I should add that the race was being run in conjunction with a balloon festival.

I’ll spare you all the pre race stuff. I arrived parked and signed in, despite registering online, my entry was missing, the website had crashed I was told! No problem it’s not like I was going to bandit it! I was asked if wanted to buy a race shirt; buy? No thanks, white cotton shirts I do not need.

I started talking to another guy in a singlet and we ran off to find the course, we found some signs and followed the arrows but we were a mile or so short! When we got back more people had signed in, there was a lot of confusion about where the start was which was only added to when they announced over tannoy that there would be a 10 minutes delay. Eventually we were given a briefing and then a little farm truck drove up…we were told to follow it; WTF? At this point I really just wanted to get going as I had been there nearly an hour! Eventually we were told to line up and so we did behind the truck, with a 3..2..1 we were off.

I had set my Garmin with a 6:15-6:30 alert spread, within the first 1/4 mile it was chiming, yeah a 5:47 pace would do that I guess! I eased off and found a comfortable groove a little under 6:30, the course wound its way through orange orchards, there were some sharp right angle turns and mostly the path was dirt or sand, not the best but it was what it was. I consciously did not wear my iPod I wanted to make sure I was focused on the running, here are the details:

As you can see it was a bit short, I was really running the tangents so I suppose that accounted for it! I had passed one other runner and then in the last 1/4 mile I was passed by two, I kicked too early for the finish and faded with them beating me by 5 seconds or so. And then the fun began…there was no real time keeping other than someone calling out the times and someone trying to write them down and catch everyone’s numbers’ easy when it’s one or two but when ten runners come through it was impossible.

Ultimately the whole timing thing was a complete cluster and I ended up helping trying to identify the Age Group winners, with the guest runner Gary Tuttle and his wife, the organizers were nowhere to be seen.

How not to organize the results…too much ganga!

The website noted that there would be awards three deep per age group and it appeared that I had come third! We had to wait till the last runner had finished of course and she crossed the line a fraction under the hour. After that we were directed to the stage where the awards would be presented…but first we treated to 20 minutes of the band:

Sorry but they were not good…can you tell by the fan base!

A marriage proposal…she said yes, well actually she said “'yes I'll take him”! Romantic!

And the vintage tractor parade!

Finally 75 minutes after I finished, they started handing out the awards…to the Age Group Winners only…i.e. One Deep oh and then I found out was bumped into 4th! Well the sun had come out and I was enjoying that!

So in the end I was 12th overall and came fourth in my Age Group! The good news I finished in an official…well as official as some calling it out, 19:11 a new PR by 31 seconds. I am really pleased given the twisty nature and surface and now I can revisit the training plan with a current 5k time to recalibrate my training paces for the next four weeks till race day.

In case you’re wondering I won’t be going back next year!

Race Sim’ & Hay Gathering!

2011-07-27T12:59:00.001-07:00

So my blogging has been distilled down to training recaps and product reviews! I suppose this is inevitable as this is really my main focus, the training plan that is! So with five weeks to go before race day I thought I would try a race simulation…hey why not! There’s enough hay in the barn* to see how much more I might need and enough time to go and get a bit more…anyway enough of the farming talk!

Room for some more….we’ll see?

So Saturday I dropped my family off at LAX as they departed on their vacation, I will be joining them in three weeks time! From there I headed to my old training ground of Will Rogers State Beach just north of Santa Monica, I used to train here a lot, nearly everyday and it would serve as a perfect simulated route for race day course: pancake flat!

The idea was to hit the 13.1 miles at a 6:53 pace and finish with seconds left to run a 1:29:xx time. That was the plan…here is the reality…this didn’t go as well as I hoped, here’s the deets:

1m 7:35 131bpm 87rpm – warm up
1m 6:41 162bpm 92rpm
1m 6:52 171bpm 92rpm
1m 6:43 175bpm 92rpm – HR redlining!
1m 7:00 176bpm 91rpm
1m 7:13 171bpm 90rpm – had to back off
1m 7:20 167bpm 89rpm
1m 7:22 170bpm 90rpm
1m 7:22 169bpm 90rpm
1m 7:25 172bpm 91rpm
1m 7:34 173bpm 89rpm – there goes one wheel!
1m 7:40 162bpm 89rpm – now I am going backwards!
1m 7:24 169bpm 90rpm
.1m 0:46 176bpm 91rpm – push at the end

Final tally 1:35 and change, so the good news is that this is actually nearly 2 ½ minutes faster than my actual HM PR, the bad news is that I still have some work to do and to an extent I do know what went wrong; which is also good news:

Went out too fast post warm up
Underfueled; I started some 4 ½ hours later than I normally start
No hydration; rookie mistake, but runningin the cool mornings I just don’t need it
I overheated; running later in the day meant that it was just a lot hotter than I am used to, I have lovely HR strap tan lines!
All I had was coffee which added to my overheating

So what to do well all of these are addressable so the thing to do is address them…, so let me think, errr steady my pace, eat something, and drink something…see easy really! Oh and run faster next time; 311 seconds faster to be precise, that's 24 seconds a mile faster!

Obviously I need some more hay!

*On a side note, looking for the image to ~~steal~~, ~~borrow~~ use I googled “hay in a barn”…people are weird is all can say!

RFP Book and Walkman Winners!

2011-07-25T10:07:00.001-07:00

Ok so I am a day late (well three) in posting this but I did actually make the draw on Friday but then got distracted getting my family off on their vacation on Saturday morning and then there was the Tour to catch up on, some running, a bit of cycling and before I knew it is was Monday morning!

So without further ado here are your winners…drumroll…

Relentless Forward Progress goes to….Mike!

The other Sony Walkman W series goes to….Peter!

Thanks guys, email me; quadrathon at gmail etc, or DM me on Twitter your mailing address and I will endeavor to get them to you before Christmas!

Review; Relentless Forward Progress

2011-07-17T18:05:00.001-07:00

There are not that many books about Ultra Running and that list gets even smaller once you remove the biographies and autobiographies. As for books that actually provide you any real “how to” information my list stood at at grand total of one, the stoic One Step Beyond, a 500+ page tome which I have owned for four years now and sits dog eared on my bookshelf. Well recently that number just doubled with the publishing of Relentless Forward Progress.

Written by Bryon Powell, the owner and main contributor to the excellent irunfar.com website the book provides a no-nonsense introduction to Ultra Running covering such topics as:

* Why run an Ultra Marathon?

* Time vs. Mileage vs. Trail Mileage

* The Dish on Chafing!

* Dream It, Do It!

In addition to Bryon’s writing , there are contributions from such luminaries in the “scene” as Geoff Roes, Krissy Moehl, Ian Torrance, Dr. David Horton and Karl King, not that Bryon is no slouch, this year he finished Western States for the forth time! My fellow Blogger has interviewed Bryon, you can listen to that here, and he also reviewed the book here as did Donald from Running and Rambling.

So why should you buy this book well, there are three things I really like:

1) It is written for the everyman, new to trail running, there’s a ton of info, been trail running for years, there’s something that you have never heard of to consider

2) It actually offers some realistic training programs, realistic as in they account for the fact that for 99% of the population we have jobs, family and all the other day to day stuff in our lives and as much as we would like to be Pros we’re not…in fact even most of the Pros have real jobs too!

3) It’s out and out inspiring, think you can do, want to do it, this book will help you to do it!

Available through the irunfar.com website you can also pick it up through Amazon.com as a book or download it on your Kindle, I was fortunate to have been sent two copies, I gave mine away; I am banned from anymore running books…so I downloaded it onto my Kindle. That leaves me one copy to give away to a lucky reader. This is simple enough and is the usual form for all my giveaways:

Show some Facebook love will get you an entry.

Post about it on your blog will get you another.

Tweet “I just entered the @quadrathon win a @irunfar #RFP competition you can too http://tinyurl.com/5urxqvz ” and you can have three.

Finally let me know how many you entries you need by leaving a comment on this post for your fourth and I will draw a winner on Friday…I also have a Sony Walkman left so the runner up can have that!

No rest for the wicked!

2011-07-11T12:58:00.001-07:00

Sunday rounded out another week of training. The last two weeks have seen a big jump in my total mileage but that’s mostly been due to bike miles and the fact that my running time has been limited, with my wife travelling for work I am limited to hitting the gym on the way home when she is away.

This week I probably bit off more than I could chew with a planned double of Friday, 90 minutes on the bike before dawn and Long Tempo run on the treadmill in the evening, which got bagged as I got bogged down in traffic on the way home and was then deferred to Saturday which nixed my rest day and has set me up for 12 day no rest stretch.

That being said even with the reduced running miles I am seeing some improvements across the boards, paces are easier to reach and maintain, distances are getting longer and when I compare run vs. run over time there is an improvement! So the week shook out like this, oh and excuse the (italicized) copy-n-paste from Daily Mile:

Monday – 3 x 1600m intervals, with a warm up and cool down. It was July 4th so we did sign up for a local Independence day 5k race, I planned to run with the family…planned!

Dropped family off and had planned to run with them, lost them at the start, waited for the whole race to go through through the start line, then ran through the race thinking they might have been faster than I thought, came back around to the start after a mile and waited 2-3 minutes just in case, then went back out on the course. Saw a guy on the side of the road who had had a heart attack getting CPR as the medics/police were getting there. Ran on and finished the 5k in 27 something which was more like 4miles with the extra loop, then started to reverse run the course and found my family after a mile and then ran back with them crossing the finish in 59 and change with our 3 and 6 year completing their first 5k!

No Garmin, no watch, no numbers!

Jeez what a way to start the day, followed by breakfast at Dennys (the Diner of champions of course!) now to the beach!

Happy 4th y'all!

Oh and the winner was on track for 14:30 until he got misdirected and ran another half mile! I need to move somewhere where there are significantly slower people, the top 3 in my age group were all sub 19:00!

Tuesday – woke up late (hate that!) Bike 20.6m 1:10 (ave 17.6mph) Clearly running late is incentive for me to get my ass into gear on my bike!

Wednesday - Short Tempo (5m@7:28) - 1 m w/u 5m @7:28 (Long Tempo pace) 1m c/d, set Garmin on a 7:15-7:30 bracket

1m 8:41 132bpm 85rpm w/u
1m 7:14 147bpm 89rpm
1m 7:15 155bpm 90rpm
1m 7:01 150bpm 90rpm (downhill)
1m 7:10 158bpm 91rpm
1m 6:53 163bpm 92rpm yeah about that!
1m 8:31 144bpm 86rpm c/d

So the moral here, re-check the plan before you head out, it should have been 6 miles not 5! But all things considered my average was a fraction slower and the w/u and c/d miles made up the distance, I didn't have the time for any more as I needed to be back home for 6am so I'll take it. Left quad a little niggly.

It's going to be pretty warm today, I walked out the house in nothing but shorts and shoes!

Thursday – back on the bike this time on the Trainer with IronMan 2 27.02m 1:44, wanted 2 hours but started a bit too late

Friday – started on the Trainer again, this time with Black Hawk Down (awesome movie, I have seen it 6 times) 23.03m 1:30, Friday Night Long tempo….yeah about that, was in bed by 9:30pm! Unheard of for me!

Saturday - Long Tempo 11m @ HMP+30 (7:23) 11 mi 01:19 + 1 m c/d

I should have run this yesterday but I was really tired so I went to bed at 9:30pm and hit the roads early (5:30am) conditions were great, low cloud, cool almost damp. The miles clicked off although by the end of it I was feeling pretty tired, I set the Garmin to a 7:15-7:30 bracket:

1m 7:29 145bpm 87rpm
1m 7:22 149bpm 89rpm
1m 7:03 149bpm 90rpm
1m 7:12 158bpm 91rpm
1m 7:08 157bpm 91rpm
1m 7:16 156bpm 91rpm
1m 7:02 164bpm 92rpm
1m 6:56 165bpm 92rpm
1m 7:09 164bpm 90rpm
1m 7:04 166bpm 90rpm - 10 miles in 1:11:44 new PB by 4 seconds!
1m 6:53 160bpm 92rpm

So yeah I was too fast overall but I will take it, it's very reassuring to know that the speed work and three quality runs using the FIRST plan is working, that being said the scary bit that I need to still take another 16 seconds off per mile to hit race pace...and add another 2.1 miles to meet race distance and there is only 7 weeks till race day!

Sunday – Trail Run

Had to bail on the early start as one of the kids was sick during the night. So I finally went out later and for only 2/3 of the distance I had planned for. It was already in the early 80s when I started and closed to 90 at the finish, just focused on my hydration and keeping moving, walked some of the hills as that was just more efficient than running them, but was pleased that ones that were runable I mostly ran.

The nice thing is that I was a minute faster and a mile and half further than when I ran this route two months ago, I'd call that progress.

Also thrown into the mix 3 x the P90X Ab Ripper sessions and some foam rolling.

Final deets for the week:

Total miles 109, Running 38 , Biking 71 Miles

Total time 11:20, Running 5:31, Biking 4:24 and the rest was core etc

And just like that we’re back to Monday again…and a whole new week to be wicked!

Review; Salomon XR Crossmax

2011-07-10T08:22:00.001-07:00

I have run in Salomon shoes for over three years now, first the XT Wings, reviewed here, then the XT Wings 2 reviewed here so I was thrilled to be asked to review the newest kick on the block the XR Crossmax. Pitched by Salomon as the shoe that allows you to transition from road to trail and as a high mileage shoe I was keen to to get them dirty and so a hundred or so miles dusty, dirty, muddy miles later here’s my review.

About 120 miles worth of embedded grim, the clean uppers show the power of gaiters

But first some info from Salomon:

The Salomon XR Crossmax Neutral trail-running shoes provide an ideal platform for high-mileage runners looking for a single pair of shoes to take them from the street to the trail and back again.

Nylon mesh uppers feature Sensifit synthetic leather overlays that wrap and secure insteps for a precise fit
Quicklace lacing system takes just 1 pull for a perfect fit; lace pocket hides lacing away
Protective toe and heel caps guard against bumps and abrasion
Neutral last ensures the shoes work with the natural shape of men's feet, enhancing greater comfort and efficiency
Advanced OS Tendon frames run along the soles of the shoes to facilitate better heel-to-toe transitions as you run
Triple-density EVA midsoles isolate you from trail impacts, and thermoplastic urethane inserts provide a barrier against sharp rocks underfoot
Contagrip LT® and Contragrip HA® combination outsoles provide solid traction and tenacious grip and conform to feet for improved lateral fit
The Salomon XR Crossmax Neutral Trail-Running Shoes sport reflective detailing to increase your visibility in low light

And so on with the review from the ground up. The sole has a fairly shallow but effective tread pattern, it’s directional to help you when you are on your toes going up and need a little heel help when braking (although midfooters might not use these)! The heel section is made from High Abrasion material. The most noticeable thing is the “OS Tendon”, this is a strap that is inlaid into the sole and loops round the heel, this promotes some “snap” as your foot transitions from landing to toe off. I have to be honest and say that there was little or no real “snap”, this is in part I am sure to my transition to mid/forefoot running. The shoes are offered in a Neutral or Stability versions, I had the former, the latter have a dual density posting.

The OS Tendon is the green lines, it extends around the heel (Photo from REI.com)

Moving upward there is a toe cover for that inadvertent stubbing action that you can find on the trails, coming further back along the shoe is the Sensifit feature. Sensifit is a rubber cover that sits on top of the fabric and acts as, well I can only call it a corset, it wraps around your foot ensure that you do not slip around in the shoe, it takes a little getting used to but like most shoes once you have some miles on them they fit without issue.

SensiFit and Quicklace Systems

Salomon have stuck with their Quicklace system which is simple and effective, cinching you in nice and snugly, the excess lace is tucked away in a pocket on the top of the tongue. There is no asymmetrical lacing so wearing gaiters with them is easy. The tongue is partially sewn in this ensures is does not slip off and is a pretty standard feature on trail shoes these days.

Inside Salomon provide their own Orthilite insole which is effective and comfortable, I have no issues with it and since transitioning to lighter forefoot shoes I have stopped wearing my custom orthotics, since October last year. There is a comfortable cushioned heel cup and that pretty much sums up the shoe.

As for the ride they are very comfortable, coming in at a slimmer 22.6 ounces 0.64kgs compared to their cousins the XT Wings 2; 26.8oz, 0.76kg, you can feel every ounce that has been shaved off. Mostly my trails hard pack or dust but I have made an effort to take them through their paces and these were the shoes I wore during my Boney Mountain adventure a few weeks ago. A couple of things to note: they do not keep the dust or water out so if you want to keep your feet clean and dry these may not be the shoes for you.

Overall Salomon have designed a comfortable and effective shoe. A little more weight loss would be nice but all in for anyone looking for a new trail shoe that they can put on and just go these could be the shoe for you.

Available is several colors and some nice female specific ones these shoes are now available through multiple retailer via clicks or bricks, a quick Google search turned them up at as low as $104, although $130 is the average. If you want another opinion check out this review from Rebecca.

There are a few more photos here:

Salomon XR Crossmax

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

This product was provided by Hillary at Outside Media If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

Things to do list…

2011-07-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

Come the last weeks of July I am going to be at a loose end with myself! My wife and kids are leaving town for a trip to the East Coast and then onto the UK. I will be joining them in the UK but I have 2 1/2 weekends completely at my disposal! What to do? Here’s a shortlist:

R2R2R – Grand Canyon, could I knock out 46 miles in one day…maybe two days?

Tour de Big Bear – 50m bike ride at around 8000’?

Hike Mt Baldy – tried that a couple of years ago and blew up!

~~SF Half Marathon – I know loads of people doing this!~~ SOLD OUT!

Mammoth Quake and Shake Half Marathon – 13.1 miles at 8000’?

A 5k or 10k…there are a few of those.

Spend a weekend lost at the Spearmint Rhino…ok this one maybe not!

Any other suggestions, I am willing to travel a bit too, which is good as there really is jack going on in SoCal, it's too hot?

June’s deets…

2011-07-02T08:22:00.001-07:00

Pretty solid month:

364 total miles
41:22 time, so about 10 hours a week
177 miles running in 25:37
177 miles cycling in 10:54
10 miles and remaining time was hiking, stretching, foam rolling etc
Longest ride 42 miles – 2:37
Longest run 15:89 – 3:02 (trail)
Starting weight 177lb ending 173lb (from 187 at end of April)
Three rest days

So as July starts I am actually 6 weeks into the plan and haven’t missed a workout, I was .25 mile short yesterday after a burpy/farty run (not good)! Other than that I am hitting the distances and the paces. I think I need to reevaluate the actual paces I need to train at as it was an amalgam of my target race pace and my last 5k, I have some family free weekends coming up so maybe I will find a 5k and see what I can do there to reset my 5k time to the plan. I am training using reverse engineered HM pace of 6:53 to go sub 1:30 but this actually gives me a 5k of 19:25…I wish!

For July and expect the volume to be similar, probably rounding things up a bit to 200 miles per discipline, the intensity will increase, the Long Tempo runs will get longer, the plan actually has me going up to 15 miles and my weekend trail runs will be getting up to and around the 20 mile mark so I should start to see some consistent 50+ miles per week. Of course the time required will increase, that’s always the hard one to keep in balance! So onwards and upwards!

And to all my American readers have a great July 4th weekend!

Second Half…

2011-06-30T04:11:00.000-07:00

Prompted by Stephanie when she asked me on Daily Mile what was I training for, I figured it was time to update my race schedule. But first let’s recap what I had on the agenda:
Hmm not such solid first half of the year, this may turn out to be my quietest race year yet, even after wrecking my leg in 2009! I did manage the 13.1 in January though! Plans to run some races with the kids didn’t really come to much fruition as I wasn’t racing neither were they although we did all run a 1 miler in March and we may squeeze in a 4th July something! That being said I am actually training for something…shut the front door! And I do have some semblance of a plan for the second half of the year and early part of next…yes I am talking about 2012 already; 178 shopping days till Christmas!

So it’s looks kinda like this:

8/28 Half Marathon of the Harbors – this is what I am training for and I am aiming for a sub 1:30. Then I head back to the dirt…

10/22 Coastal Trail Runs Malibu Creek 25k – there are several races that run this loop each year; along, up, along, down, easy!

11/12 Catalina Island Eco Marathon – this race claimed two toe nails and whole chunk of pride last year, time for some revenge!

11/20 PCTR Santa Monica Mountains 50k – I have run either the 30k or 50k 4 out of the last 5 years, it was my very first Ultra

1/16 Calico Ghost Town 50k – I raced this in 2008, four years later seems about right, just like the Olympics right!

2/25 Ray Miller 50m – this follows a similar course to the PCTR race, this is up in the air for now…we’ll see, but I do need a sub 11:00 finish!

As we all know it’s very easy to write a list of races for the future, it’s another thing to get the training done and then turn up to the start line uninjured and healthy!

I intend to take these one at a time and hopefully enjoy some success.

Wordless Wednesday…seen on my ride!

2011-06-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

Not bad for an iPhone!

Beaten up and bush whacking on Boney Mountain

2011-06-26T17:20:00.001-07:00

I am really liking the routine I have gotten myself into, three training runs; Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a recovery run and cross training on the other week days and that leaves me the weekend to play. It can be a bit brutal starting the day at around 4:15am and squeezing in a 10-11 miler and getting home around 6:00am is a challenge but so far so good, this weeks training was another solid week; 49 miles, another 24 miles on the bike, some stretching and all in for just under 10 hours. The week shakes out with Intervals on Monday; totally messed up my Garmin data.

Wednesday; Short tempo: 1m w/u 5m x 6:53

Friday; Long Tempo; 9m x 7:13, messed up the first mile’s data!

I am pretty pleased with the splits, these are not easy runs but I am getting in range of the target paces, I am trying to learn to feel the pace rather than rely on looking at my Garmin or using the Pace Alert to warn me to slow down; happens not much or speed up; happens much.

So with these in the bank I had Saturday to play, I headed to Boney Mountain to run the Xterra Half Marathon course, it’s a challenging course which I have not been on for a couple of years, so it took a bit of total recall to remember the actual route and I made a couple of wrong turns, one which took me off course by a couple of miles. I was pleased that I managed to run the first set of climbs and pretty much I ran the first 11 miles only stopping to take photos.

Around this time to trail turned from fairly runabale:

To a bushwhacking bonanza:

Yeah it’s in there somewhere, and it it got thicker at ground level, leg level and chest level! This continued for another couple of miles and left me no resort but to walk, I never realized I could get my HR to 165 walking and the ever fun 14:00 minute miles! Finally at the top it opened out and I was treated to the downhill view of well, nothing; thick cloud, thick bushes and 30 minutes behind schedule meant that the camera went away and I was resorting to calling home to reshuffle things much to the amusement of some hikers as I dashed down the hill! I pushed through back to the car and had enough mileage, over three hours on my feet, a lovely green smear across my shirt and a cactus thorn in my thigh to show for my efforts!

It’s a nice reminder not to get too complacent and that while I am getting reasonably quick on the roads, the trails can give me a right good ass kicking!

None of the photos are great, but they’re here:

Boney Mountain, 6/6/11

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

I wish I could write like this…

2011-06-21T14:26:00.001-07:00

“….it's about believing in yourself when you don't have a reason to; it's about the courage to try something beyond hard when the rest of the world is incredulous; it's about your own personal honesty with yourself; it's about living life with passion and conviction; and most importantly, it's about bringing out the best in human beings. I don't see this race as a fearsome challenge anymore, but an amazing opportunity to do achieve something brilliant. We aren't much more than tissue and bone, but when we are committed and driven, our incredibly insignificant small bodies do some amazing things that shock the entire universe."

Source

A 1000 words…

2011-06-19T23:19:00.001-07:00

Well not quite but in the spirit of a picture is worth…total self indulgence…enjoy!

It’s been a while since I hit the trails and hit them hard. 16 miles, 3100’ of elevation gain (and loss), lots of smiles and a 7:00 minute mile on the downswing…I was flying! In other news…I was 1 mile short of hitting 50 for the week, that’s bit of a jump but the legs are feeling good!

Wordless Wednesday…

2011-06-15T06:41:00.001-07:00

No Brainer…

Another week of hay in the barn…

2011-06-12T21:11:00.001-07:00

Another Sunday night and another week of training in the bank…in fact I had in the bank by 6:45am Friday!

Monday Interval Ladder: 2m w/u 400, 600, 800, 1200, 800, 600, 400 with 400 RI, 1m cd

Wednesday 5 miles at mid tempo pace, that’s a 6:53 pace, I smiled when I saw it was only 5 miles, 35 minutes later I was very happy that it was only 5, this was sheer bloody hard work!

Friday 1m w/u 9 miles at HM+20 seconds (7:13) 1m c/d…this was also tough and not pretty!

Like I said my training log:

“I was a little worried about this run, too many late and broken nights and 40+ running miles in the preceding 5 days were catching up with me. Looks like my worries were well grounded, couldn't quite get up to speed and 2 or 3 miles were just plain horrible. It reinforces the need for rest days and solid nights sleep especially with the alarm going off at 4:30am everyday. All that being said it's actually nice to know "why" it didn't go quite right. On the bright side it's only the end of week 2 so I have till the end of August to dial in all in.”

Tuesday and Wednesday were recovery runs but I think the overall accumulation just caught up with me! Anyway Friday night my wife and I headed out of LA for a short weekend in Big Bear, we arrived at a reasonable hour had a great meal and were in bed by 9:30pm…10 hours later I woke up, so yeah I think the week had caught up with me! Saturday we did a couple of hikes, well one hike and a nice stroll along the lake. Here are the best of the photos. I also got to put the finishing miles on a pair of GoLite Tara Lites…review to follow!

Being a product reviewer can be hell at times!

Big Bear Lake, June 2011

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

Sunday we headed back into LA early and taking full advantage of our baby sitter, I took my bike out for a spin and to get some much needed cross training in. I choose a local ride that had some rollers and some smallish climbing. I wanted to ride with a high cadence so I wasn't mashing in the big gear all the time and try to up my average speed, it seemed to work. Average cadence was 89 just shy of targeted 90 but my average speed was much higher than it has been of late! Of course maxing out at 39.9 mph coming down the big hill didn't do any harm!

So on with Week 3

It’s that time of year again…

2011-06-09T21:58:00.001-07:00

A little over two weeks to go to the Gran’ Daddy of Ultra Running happens….

Here endeth the week…

2011-06-06T13:12:00.001-07:00

Well actually it did yesterday! I finished out Week 1 of training…Shut the Front Door you say! Yeah training it’s been happening. Back on the FIRST training plan, I have had good results using the Interval sets and the full 10k plan I figured why not, right! It’s an 18 week plan that I will of course shorten…I can’t train for 18 weeks it’s too long and I switch off around week 14! I only have 12 weeks anyway to my target race. The Half Marathon of the Harbors, it’s a pancake flat HM it’s my shot at a sub 1:30! So Week 1 was interesting, if you’re familiar with the FIRST plan it is three structured runs, Intervals, Short Tempo and Long tempo, plus some cross training. I managed to hit all my marks:

Tuesday 2 x 1m w/u 12 x 400m with 400m RI 1m c/d (I was hitting the quarters around 1:40)

Thursday 2 x 1m at easy pace (8:40) 3 x 1m at 7:40 1 m c/d although I forgot my turn around and added an extra three mile

Sunday 1m w/u 8m at HM pace +20 seconds (7:13) 1 m c/d (really pleased with this as they were all around the right mark or faster)

I threw in another run on the local trail, two bike rides and had a day off and finished the week with pretty fair numbers:

It’s basically an 70 minutes of training a day and a bit of time spent loving my foam roller…nothing to set the world alight but consistency is key. If you really want to follow the nitty gritty hit me up on Daily Mile So starts Week 2…

Au Revoir!

2011-05-27T10:55:00.001-07:00

Bullet list thoughts about nearly two weeks spent in Canada:

On the whole Canadians live up to the reputation for being friendly, I got asked quite a few times if I was enjoying my stay and were people nice to me.

Tim Horton’s this is a Canadian institution…sorry but I am totally not getting it? Coffee is meh at best and there is no atmosphere etc, I love me my Peets!

The weather, yep it pretty much sucked, lots of rain; 9 days out of 13 I think, but hey I am from England, we invented rain, well actually the Welsh did but then we invaded Wales! Definitely miss my SoCal sunshine…but after a summer of heat I am sick of that too!

I actually had two pretty solid weeks of training which will round out the month of May with with 200m+ on the bike and 120m+ on foot, I’ll take this as a solid base month. I can feel my base coming back up and my heart rate dropping…these are good things

Ottawa itself is like most Capital Cities a mish mash of old and new, there are some really pretty areas; Gatineau, Rideau Canal and Ottawa River are really nice, downtown is a bit crappy, the Byward restaurant district is a tourist trap but if you look you can find some pretty good hole in the walls

Beaver Tails…a crepe, with all sorts of stuff put on it, heart attack in wrap someone called it; best avoided!

People stay out late, I was keeping West Coast time, which meant I was going to bed around 1am and waking around 9am local, people were out partying; nearly everynight till the early hours!

So that’s about it I think…homeward bound today!

Review; Amp Pro2 Compression: Training Tights & Training Short Sleeve Shirt

2011-05-24T11:34:00.001-07:00

So a while ago Saucony contacted me and asked would I be willing to review their new Amp Pro2 Compression clothing and of course who was I to say no. So in time honored fashion here’s the info from their website:

Compression fit reduces muscle vibration and AMP PRO2 responsive fibers improve overall circulation to keep you going for as long as you need to.

AMP PRO2 41% Celliant Polyester, 43% Nylon, 16% Lycra
Features Microban antimicrobial
Contrast panels with tonal geometric print
Back storage pocket with lockdown zipper pull
Zippered entry at leg opening with grippers
Reflective elements and AMP PRO2 heat transfer logo
29" inseam

So having worn them for several months over multiple runs and distances I now feel pretty qualified to write the review.

Let’s talk about the tights first. First of all I am tall, at 6’1” I am not super tall, but above average and that usually means that to get the right length I end up have to up size and then things don’t fit widthwise, I am the not so classic 31/32 waist 34 leg rather than the 32/34 waist 32 leg which is more commonly seen. However these come with a 29’ inseam, what does that mean…it means they fit!!! Yes they reach all the way down to my boney ankles! Hooray!

The compression is very…well compressed, they fit tightly and it’s a wriggle to get them on…but that is the point! One nice touch is that there are zips at the bottom of the legs and this helps with the wriggling, they also have rubber grippers, think cycling shorts, round the ankles to stop them from riding up! As best I can tell the red panels are thinner and this helps cool you down, like most tights these are warm and so I would not recommend them on a summer day, but for an early morning run when it’s a bit cold they are perfect. I can’t vouch for them in the thick of winter though…we don’t really have those in Southern California. Another nice touch is the built in pocket at the back, it’s nestled in just below the waistband so none of that digging you in the hip as you run. Talking of waistbands this one sits true, that is round your waist, which overcomes the issue I had with my Sugoi tights which wear more like hipsters and so now I am not constantly having to hitch them up. In terms of the compression as it relates to the actual running, from a scientific perspective the jury is out, check out what Joe Friel has to say here, that being said do my legs feel better for wearing them, the answer is yes, it may not be empirical or quantifiable but it is qualitative based on my experience. My only real criticism is that when stretched there is a distinct waffle or fishnet pattern…it’s a little off putting but you have to get pretty close to see it and I assume that it serves some ventilation purpose.

Now for the shirt, which has some different features from the tights; the big difference is the fabric content with there being more Celliant; the mix is 54% Celliant Polyester, 27% Nylon, 19% Lycra; from Celliant’s website:

Celliant is a technology that modifies visible and infrared light, recycling them into energy that the body can use more effectively. When Celliant is worn as clothing, or placed near the body (like in a bed liner or a blanket), it redirects this recycled energy back to the body increasing blood flow and blood oxygen levels in the tissue.

Sounds like voodoo? Well there is some science behind it backed by some clinical studies too. Anyway this was the first compression shirt I have tried, again like the tights it’s plenty long enough. It’s very very figure hugging, and it was a sharp reminder that I am not as skinny as I used to be and not as toned as I should be…in other words if you have a little excess it’s gonna roll right over it and make look like it’s there! That being said it’s easy to wear under something else after all we’re not all built like Usain Bolt or Shalane Flanagan…hence the stock photos! That being said it is very comfortable and very, very wicking, having anything that close to your skin needs to be especially if like me your a sweater (sorry TMI?) my only complaint is that the sleeves are a little long but I assume that if your biceps resemble anything more than bits of string with knots in at the elbow then you should be fine…seriously that what my arms look like. The direct effect of compression is a bit harder the note with a shirt, it’s not like my arms ache from running right?!? But I do feel that there is some benefit and it’s much more noticeable now when I run with a regular shirt…I am thinking that when I start into the speed work that next month will bring this shirt will come into it’s own…well see.

So in summary I have written many reviews on compression clothing (see right tool bar), tights, sleeves, socks and shorts but these could quite possibly be the best compression clothing items that I have tried, most certainly the tights. The one big difference is that they really fit well, not just in terms of compression but the actual cut fits out of the package. The compression, which let’s face it is why you would get them, is very effective not only in the fit but in it’s efficacy during and post run, but remember this is only anecdotal. Finally the look is attractive, subdued in color but pretty stylish. Available through Saucony direct you can also pick these up through multiple outlets on the web. Through Saucony the tights retail for $110 and the shirt is $90, yeah they’re not cheap but what’s how do you put a price on performance

These tights were provided free of charge by Saucony See previous gear reviews in the sidebar on the right. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

Getting it done…

2011-05-22T19:33:00.001-07:00

Three solid weeks of base training and one to go before the month is out and I start training proper!

Run week and bike weekend

Bike week and run weekend

Run week and Sunday and a bike on Saturday

Still lacking a little in consistency apart from the last week.

Right now I am enjoy the hospitality of Ottawa, Canada, but working on Pacific time which means I stay up late and then get up early-ish and can run for an hour and be back in time to start work at 8:00am, it kind of works!

Yesterday’s ride was unorthodox as I rented a hybrid and toured around the city and out into the Gatineau region which is a large park:

My steed for the day!

I ended up a little lost and was helped out by two local ladies who demonstrated that famous Canadian friendliness and who got me back on track and took me up a nice climb where I was treated to the view below, the lake is named after a family who settled nearby rather than its color!

Pink Lake

As we rode out of the park I realized there was a bike race so I decided to loiter and watch a couple of the laps, it was 11 x 9km loops so I watched a couple of loops, aware that I needed to get my bike back in time.

Up close and personal….and then aerial from the freeway bridge

Today’s run was a little test of my pace as I put down a 8 miler with 4 miles at tempo pace:

2m warm up; 8:18, 7:52
4m tempo; 7:47, 7:34, 7:36, 7:47
2m cool down; 8:16, 7:45...oops!

Not the fastest 8 miler I have run and I will need to drive those 7’s down to hi 6s to get to my target 1:30 Half Marathon

So as the month wraps up I will transition onto a 3 month training plan using the FIRST method which I have used successfully for training for a 10k last year where I shaved off nearly 4 minutes…this year I need to shave nearly 8 minutes over double the distance! Doable…let’s see!