IDT Bike Course

I'm back east for a few days visiting my family, most importantly my brand new niece, Bella.
While I'm out here though I decided it would be a good idea to ride the bike course for the IDT. The course is primarily 4 loops within Myles Standish State Forest, a place wher I actually worked for one summer after I graduated High School, so I knew roughly what to expect. A scenic forext bike ride, some small rollers, no big hills and some stretches with absolutely no shade. That's pretty much what I found during our single loop ride (my friend Nicole joined me). We took a few wrong turns early on and had to stop to check the map throughout.
The roads have no shoulder whatsoever, but traffic is so sparse, that shouldn't be a problem. There is a fair amount of sand on the course in some spots, hopefully they'll have the sense to streetsweep it the day before. There are also a lot of bumps in the road due to the trees in the area, though very few potholes (a common problem in New England). There were very few hills worth mentioning, certainly nothing worth noting compared to the rollers on 36 on the 5430 bike course, not by a long shot. There will be several pretty sharp turns on the course each lap, three turns along the course of more than 90 degrees and two out & back turnarounds.
I felt really good on the ride, we took our time, partly because I kept dropping Nicole whenever I really got into the ride. I really felt great, and could definitely feel the altitude advantage.
All told, the course should be fairly easy, the hills are pretty minor, but I'll have to stay alert and watch the road the entire time watching for bumps.

Land of the Lost

I decided to bike into Denver yesterday to meet up with my friend Priya for dinner. She had been promising me her beet pasta for ages and I was finally going to try it out. First I had to get there though.
I had budgetted 2-3 hours to get there, it should only have been about 30 miles and I had chosen what I thought was a simple route. What actually happened was closer to a 4 hour bike ride and involved me getting lost twice.
The first time I took a turn on Wadsworth Parkway instead of Wadsworth Boulevard and ended up taking a very hairy trip on an overpass over Rte 36 with lots of traffic, no shoulder and a guardrail only about a foot and a half high. I was significantly less than excited about that.
The second time was even worse as I got lost in a less than comfortable neighborhood in West Denver. Let's just say they probably didn't see many people passing through wearing one piece trisuits on TT bikes. I didn't even stop to figure out where I was, I just kept moving, though I was stymied by a couple dead end streets.
By the time I got to Priya's, I was exhausted and starving. Fortunately a shower, food, comfy couch and charming company were all waiting for me.
The beet pasta was worth the trip.

Where's Chaser Been?

It's been far too long since my last post. Life has been chaotic to day the least. Shortly after my last post I was laid off from my job here in Boulder This resulted ina reordering of priorities and blogging about my training fell way down the list behind job hunting, apartment hunting, working part time, helping a friend move, studying for the LEED exam, training and starting my own ane-man design studio. I never would have thought that being unemployed would take up so much time!
My training has lost some edge and focus lately, I'm hoping that psoting here again on a regular basis will help me to rediscover it. I've also been having some issues with my left shoulder during the swim. Very frustrating.
It's time to get back in the swing of things though. Time to start excelling and not just accomplishing.

Regular Features...

I’m going to try and start doing some regular posts here at Chasing Boston. Every Monday there should be a post on one of two subjects, alternating. The first is a review of the last two weeks training and will coincide with the end of each two week cycle I get from Mark. The second will be a focus on one of the disciplines, from varying perspectives. It could be a focus on what I’ve been doing, progress I’ve made, goals, or just an interesting article or snippet of conversation with Mark regarding that particular discipline.

Since I just had a two week block wrap up on Sunday, I’m going to go over it now. Before I do that, I figured I should establish a baseline. First of all, while no two blocks are the same, there is a rhythm or routine that Mark has established around what generally works for my schedule. While I would describe these as typical or average, it’s all open to variation.

Monday: Swim 3-3500yards; Run 40-45 minutes. While the run has some intensity to it, it’s generally easier than my other short runs as a recovery from Sunday.

Tuesday: Bike 70-90 minutes with some intense intervals. This is usually a workout I enjoy a lot.

Wednesday: Swim 3500ish yards, with the main workout involving blocks of 500, what mark has come to call my ‘broccoli’; Run, this has been Nighthawks snowshoe races or a 45 minute run. I’ll miss the Nighthawks runs, though it looks like mark might throw track workouts at me on Wednesdays now, which I really enjoy.

Thursday: Swim 3000ish yards, usually seems to be a workout that’s a little more complicated than the others with more variety on distances and intensities; Bike a little more than an hour with some really short, REALLY intense bursts.

Friday: Swim 3500ish yards; Run 40-50 minutes

Saturday: Bike with the tri club (or long ride on the trainer if weather is nasty). I’ll often toss a VERY easy 5-10 minute jog on the end of the ride for my own sake of loosening up the legs and adjusting them to the bike/run transition

Sunday: Usually two runs, one AM, one PM, typically the same workout in the area of 40-50 minutes each. There’s also a 3500yd swim workout. Recently I’ve taken to doing the first run as a run up to the Boulder Rec, doing my swim, cooling down a bit, then running back as the second run. It makes me feel really efficient and Mark seems to think it’s cool.

So in a given week I’m swimming 5 days for a total of about 17000 yards. I bike 3 days for about 4-5 hours total and run 4 days for about 3.5 hours total.

Going back a second, 17000 yards a week? I’m swimming 9.5 miles per week!? Is that right… !? I double checked the math, and that’s right. Holy crap mark, you’ve got me swimming almost 10 miles a week????

So, the last two weeks (ending Sunday)…

This past block was not a very productive one for me. I caught a cold and missed several swims, which is always the first thing to go when I’m not feeling well. Swimming always seems to make any cold or bug I have feel far, far worse. I still got the runs and bike rides in, but my intensity was down a good bit. I did manage to get to the last Nighthawks race, which was a lot of fun.

So, no breakthroughs or anything this time around, mostly I was just trying to get healthy and keep active.

Random Stuff

My training has been going well, aside from having a cold recently. I'm still struggling (i.e. only occasionally succeeding) at getting up early to do morning workouts, especially swims. Although with the cold I have had, I've been avoiding the pool. Nothing make me feel worse when I'm sick than swimming in a pool. urgh. Today was the first day I really felt close to 100% in a week, which was awesome.

The last Nighthawks snowshoe race was on Wednesday. Gotta wait 10 months for the next one... I really enjoyed them, they really kicked my butt.

I've had my new Asus Eee PC for almost a month now... oh man, I love this thing. I haven't taken it travelling yet, which will certainly make me love it even more, but it really is a fantastic machine. I've started converting my friends as well, one has already gotten one and a few others are considering it.

I Love This Town!

First of all, yes, i know I look like a humongous dork in the photo I posted yesterday. I don't care, i was warm!

I mooshed three workouts today into one, I did a 40 minute run that ended at North Boulder Rec (where I discovered Priya's new roommate is interning) and as I was heading down broadway I came over this hill to a gorgeous view of the foothills and all I could think of was what a lucky sonuvagun I am. Once I got to the pool, I did 3500 yards, and I could feel my abs and obliques engaging like I hadn't noticed before, i don't know if this was good or bad, but there it is.

After the swim I sat in the hot tub for a few minutes, watching the sunlight that was coming through the windows dance on the surface of the water. I also bumped into Andrew Halperin, who every time I see him, I forget his name.

Then I changed back into my running clothes and did another 40 minute run, terminating at home. a couple times on that trip back I got views of the foothills and flatirons that jsut made me want to scram for the shear joy of being alive and living the life I have.

The last time my mind jumped to Ghostbusters and Winston Zedmore at the end of the film rearing back and screaming " I LOVE THIS TOWN!"

Damn right Winston, damn right.

Snowshoeing

A friend of mine tried to get me into snowshoeing a couple years back, I gave it a shot once, but really didn't take to it.

A week and a half ago, another friend and I went to a snowshoe race up at Eldora... perhaps i should have done a snowshoe race in the first place.

the race was on a beautiful clear wednesday night. As we stood at the start I couldn't help but think, "This is living... a beautiful clear moonlit night in the mountains, moon shining down,stars sparkling in the sky, brisk air in my lungs, a wonderful friend at my side and adrenaline pumping as we wait for the race to start."

The race started and I realized I didn't even need my headlamp, the light from the moon and stars cast a gorgeous glow. The race was brutal, 5kish with vicious hills and I'd never run in snowshoes before. 

I spent much of the race walking,wiped out from trying to get up hills.

Priya and I were probably last to cross the finish line, but we didn't care, we were hooked... we had such a blast and immediately resolved to do the rest of the races in the series.

This week, I resolved to run the whole course, now that I had an idea of what running in snowshoes would be like. Priya was fighting a chest and head cold but still did well all things considered. I came so close to running the whole race, but there was a patch of powder towards the end of the loop and the first time I hit it I really struggled and ended up walking a bit to recover. I did much better the other two loops though and that was the only time I didn't run during the race.

Bring on week 3!

Sweets

Those who know me well, know I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Those who know me really well, know I have something of a problem with Thin Mints.

How much of a problem? Well, my Thin Mint order came in today...

Am I a swimmer?

I've been working a lot lately, which has been kind of stressful and made getting my training in difficult at some times.

So when I found myself with a day long, persistent urge to swim... I didn't fight it. It's not a swimming day according to my sched, but I made a quick trip over to the Rec after work because you just shouldn't fight that sort of urge. I didn't swim long, I had dinner and a bike ride to do, but just 15 minutes in the pool really hit the spot.

Music

Confession: With the exception of a Beach boys concert in 1997 (that I don't count due to unusual circumstances) I'm never been to a contemporary concert before Friday night. I say contemporary because the opera and classical music don't seem to belong in the same type of category.

Yes, I'm a dork. Why had I never been to a concert before? Well, to be honest, music has never really been a big part of my life. I didn't grow up listening to a lot of music and the music I did listen to was typically classic rock. Not exactly easy to get tickets to see Queen.

Friday night I went to Boulder Theatre and saw a local band called Paper Bird. My good friend Priya is a huge fan and invited me along. We suffered through the rather long opening acts, or anticipation building and finally, around 11:30 (yeah, 11:30) they came on. I suppose they'd be described as bluegrass or folk.  What I really noticed though was how much FUN they seemed to have together on stage, singing and performing. The singers especially seemed to just be so happy to be doing what they were doing. In spite of the late hour, it was impossible to not get caught up in their joy and the fun and beauty of their music. It wasn't Mozart, it wasn't brilliant, but it was fun and honest and wonderful and I look forward to seeing them perform again.