Asphalt Junkies CLOSED AND GETTING OUR FIX (Page 61)

My goodness - more awesome posts. I've completely missed out this week because I've been so damn busy. I have a race on Sunday and I've missed training since last week (with the exception of the horses). We have a wedding to go to tonight, and we're off to the venue tomorrow. It's an ocean swim, so it should be fun. I haven't been to the beach in AGES!!

Good luck to those racing this weekend - I know there's a few.

Keep up the good work everyone else and let us know the remaining results of your test Jeff, I'm sure you'll be okay! 

John

Okay, I'm back.  Life is crazy right now.  Just nuts in fact.  I will have some time during the pouring rain this weekend to catch up with everyone.  

Costa Rica was awesome....very rustic, but still awesome.  Got some surfing, zip-lining, 4-wheeling, swimming, running, eating and a little drinking in.  It was a great week with great friends.

Unfortunately I got hit in the face with the surfboard, pulled a muscle in my leg somehow and have a sweet shin-splint from running on the beach.  Life goes on.

I'm sure anyone with CNN has heard that there was a fire on a submarine.  Unfortunately that submarine is the one that I am in charge of for structural engineering.  This week has been crazy busy trying to sort out a plan and where we are going from here, so I apologize for not posting before now.

I hope all is well with everyone.  I did hear that we have some awesome race results and can't wait to read about them all.

I know what you mean Jonathon.  Things have been kind of crazy for the past few weeks for me too.  Pretty much ever since the porch began I have been going mostly non-stop with some type of out of normal schedule.  Things have settled down a little this week and should be fairly close to normal next week except for Laiken's graduation party all day next Saturday.

Take care of the mending process for your injuries.  Hopefully the injuries really didn't impede the vacation any and you could finish with a good time rather than worrying about your legs.

I know you're doing your best already but take care of those sailors!  They deserve the best care on the planet.

On my own training note:  I salvaged my training week as much as possible with another 50 mile ride today.  I did it with the group I began riding with last year but today was the first time I have been out with them this season.  It was a great ride but very windy!  The wind was really difficult to hide from at most points during the ride.  I had also forgotten about riding in the slipstream too.  That would have saved me a whole ton of work had I remembered it before 20 miles into the ride.  Oh well the benefits of the work load are better the more work I did.

The last 8 mile of the ride we kind of split up a little because one of the riders lit up the road.  He came around me (I was pulling) like a shot and took off from there.  By this point in the ride the group was down to 3 of us and the other rider and I worked together to keep Patrick close.  During these miles I had 2 miles over 28 MPH.  I have to say that was pretty awesome!  The other miles had either stop signs or corners but all of the last miles were 21+ MPH.   Nearly all of the miles were HAMMERED and I let the other guy pull for a little over 1 mile before I took the lead back.

Nice, Dirk. Looks like a great ride. I love those group rides.

Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow.

I'll be up early for my Luekemia benefit ride. The town is full of riders. I was out the last 2 days riding with many of them and had some real fun. If that is an indicator of the people participating, then tomorrow will be awesome. Just sucks I have to work tomorrow after I ride/race.

I use a single bottle belt, which doubles as a belt to attach my dog's running leash to.  It's comfortable to wear, although it does bounce a little bit.  http://www.amazon.com/Amphipod-Full-Tilt-Velocity/dp/B003E1WQ6I/ref=sr_1_41?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1338680620&sr=1-41

I normally don't take a drink unless I'm running over an hour, mainly because I have wanted to get used to being in a race and not being able to drink whenever I want.

This is horrible!  It's bad enough that you had the fire and then some moron steals your belongings.  Is it possible that you could do the race without the suit and watch?  Maybe someone who raced yesterday and is hanging around today could loan you the suit for the swim?  Maybe speak to the RD and let them know what happened, they may have a suit around somewhere.

I am curious to how the fire started too.  I had recently seen that someone left a cigarette charger plugged into their car while away from it and that was the ignition source.  I thought that was a stretch at the time but now I am wondering if it wasn't a stretch.

So sorry to hear that!

Wow, what a wonderful morning!

I had the benefit ride this morning. It was great.

I got up this morning at 3:30am and choked down some breakfast. I really hate eating breakfast. I double checked all my equipment and bike. Did some stretching and went for a 20 minute run to get the blood flowing. I got all my gear on and double checked my water and gels. I planned on a 3:30:00 ride, so no food, just liquids. A couple of the guys stopped by on the way to the start and we biked to the check-in. It's only about 3 miles to the start. We talked about what our plan was and decided to give it all we had. There was wind in the forecast (15-20mph) and we wanted to beat it before it got too bad.

We got checked in and met up with all the guys. There would be 9 of us in the group. Geez there was a lot of people! We were starting in the first quarter of people. We wanted to just get clear of the mass and mash the pedals. We spent the first 5 miles getting through town and getting our cadence down. Since I spend 2-3x a week training this stretch of the course, I was pacing the group. For the first 35 miles of the ride, we were at a 23 mph average. We still had 37 miles to go and the biggest climb for the day. We slowed down the pace a bit, so we had some gas for the climb. We hit the Spooner/Mt. Rose Climb and mashed hard. I have never hit this climb so hard. My legs were screaming! To be honest, I felt like dropping back, but I told myself it will be over in a few minuts. What seemed like an hour, turned out to be about 7 minutes. LOL Man this sucks. We finally crested the top and began our descent. This is the home stretch! Only a few more miles! This was the first time I looked at our time. A little over 3:00:00. Holy ... We were flying. I got back to concentrating, but a couple of the guys must have realized the same thing. There was big smiles on everyone's faces. We were soon in site of the finish. Big crowd, lots of cheering! I haven't heard something like this since I played college football.

We all crossed the finish like we just finished the TdF. lol You couldn't have chiseled our smiles off. We weren't the fastest, but we felt like we were.

Final results:

I am still amped up. Unfortunately I am at work. No after race party and BBQ, but I am still very proud of my result. After a year of back problems and almost quitting all together, this was awesome.

 The best part of this is the money we raised. Myself: $4700, the Group: $42,320. Amazing!

Jonathan welcome back and glad to hear you had a great vacation. I hope you are feeling better and recouping the injuries. Also I did not hear about the sub fire either but I hope that wasn't too serious and I can only imagine how you felt hearing about that. I hope everything works out with that.

Tracy I am very sorry to hear about what happened this weekend. I am glad to hear that you are alright but that really does suck. I hope your luck turns around for the better and am hoping you found a way to race even though you probably didn't even want to after what happened.

JoAnne your bike ride sounded a lot like mine last weekend. Between the wind and my cold it wound up being a very fustrating ride as the speed, cadence and mileage was not even close to where I would have liked them to be. I guess we all have days like that. I am sure you will have better rides ahead.

Dirk congrats to your daughter on her graduation. I am sure she will appreciate the letter that you wrote her. I hope you both had a great day.

Stan congrats on a great ride today. I had a feeling that you were going to go for it and I am glad to hear that you did. That's an awesome time and better yet you guys did a great job raising money for a great cause.

Okay...it's taken me the better part of an hour to go through and read posts and race reports.  Some awesome/scary/concerning/inspirational stuff happening in this group.  What else is new, right?

Dirk - I see no new pictures of the deck!  Is it done or what?  You're really milking this one for all it's worth, you know.  And I don't want to hear excuses related to packing people to move to different states in two days or graduation planning or prom or kids needing car repairs or family life....because I don't have any clue how much effort any of that takes.  But seriously...you are kicking butt in an all around way.  And if you really have issues not having any kids in the house, you can always adopt Kate and I....  Congrats on your OA podium finish.  I took a look at your race report and I'm almost positive you're lying about the swim split.  Friggin' fish.

John - How is that hamstring coming along?  I know that is a muscle that takes a long time to heal.  Every time I get some sort of tweak in the back of my leg, it takes weeks to go away.  Luckily nothing that has slowed my training.  Also, congrats on your polocrosse tourny.  That's pretty sweet you were voted 2nd in your position.

Tony - As always very encouraging and positive.  I love reading your posts.  Literally makes me WANT to train.  Luckily I'm done for the day and have a pounding headache.  I'm just gonna slam some ice cream and call it good.  I would echo everyone else as far as the numb hands while biking.  I also find that if I lock my elbows it makes the numbness worse.  Try that.

JoAnne - I wanted to add a little in regard to keeping your cadence at or around 90 all the time.  I personally believe it is specific to the person.  There are coaches that will tell you that being at a higher cadence is smarter because it requires less force per revolution and there are coaches that will tell you to choose a lesser cadence because it keeps your heart rate down...blah blah blah.  I choose the cadence that keeps me most comfortable for the specific ride that I'm doing.  For flat course, I come out somewhere in the 80s and for hilly courses, I come out somewhere in the upper 90's.  

David - Congrats on your first TRI!!!  That's a great time and I personally think you should just continue.  Stick to shorter distance races and you won't have to take as much time to train.  The weekend workouts will be shorter and you'll have enough time for the fam!  (coming from someone without kids)

Tracy - Holy crap...girl, you're a mess!  Allergies, chicken attacks, burglaries, and now a fire in your truck?!?!  I admire how you keep it all together.  And on top of that getting great workouts in.  Very inspirational.

Vero - So happy to hear that the knee pain is gone.  That can be such an annoying problem to have, trust me...I've been there for months.

Stan - Honestly....722 miles on a bike in one month is just plain awesome.  I see 400 like once a year and I think I'm captain friggin' America!  The speeds that you carry over those distances, and the fact that many of them are over actual mountains is sweet!

Matt - Very funny story about your 10 year old and his aero position.  I can't wait to have kids just to see what they will come up with next!

Jeff - Thanks for that post on running in the heat.  I have serious heat issues.  My number one problem is that I get pounding headaches from it.  Also, take care of yourself.  Some of the symptoms you are having I am all too familiar with.  It is good that you identified this as an issue.  It's something I also struggle with, but more or less comes in phases that I cannot predict.  Keep us informed and updated.

Brenda - That is so awesome that you get to take your daughter to states for the 4 x 400.  When did you say you were going???

AJ - Welcome back and thanks for stopping by!  I can only imagine that preparing for a new baby takes a ton of time, so good luck with that!!

Allison - Glad to see you are back training and happy.  I'm super jealous that your husband bought you a 910XT!!  I want one so bad, but I'll just have to wait. :-)

Speaking of weddings, my lovely fiance has proclaimed from the kitchen that my mentor group is not as important as planning for this wedding, so I have to run!!!  Happy training all..and everyone that raced this weekend, get those race reports up!!

Tracy, are you kidding me?  What a crazy time you're having.  A fire, and then stolen stuff?!?!?  When it rains...

Where are the race reports people?

Welcome back Jonathan.  I did hear about that sub, and I figured you'd be involved somehow! And don't worry - life gets so much simpler and slower once you're married and have some kids.

Stan, awesome job on the $$$ raised.  That's an unreal total.

Good luck Paul.  Glad to hear you're starting to get some relief.  Shingles are just nasty.

As for me, I spent the weekend at the lake (including Friday) on a 3 day anniversary celebration with just my wife.  We had a trusted friend watch the boys (which is challenging given the youngest one) and we had an AWESOME time with just the two of us.  She's having some foot issues so we didn't run but we got a short ride in Friday.  It rained all day Saturday so we just stayed on the island and enjoyed being together again.  We always say we love each other, but the part I really can't believe sometimes is after 18 years we still really like each other!

I gotta hit the pool this week so I don't drown in my race next week.

Well, I am happy that I was able to get in 30 miles of running this week!  I've generally been hovering around 20. (I did have a light week last week.)  It didn't seem so bad, mostly because I ran more days than I usually do.  That made it so I can run more shorter runs (which mentally makes it easier to get out the door) which add up!  This week I ran 6 days, which I never do (usually 4).  It also probably helped that I really didn't swim or bike this week.  There were a couple days this week that I was so sleepy, and would have preferred to have gone straight to bed, but got myself out the door knowing that once I got out there, it wouldn't feel so bad. Anyway, good running week this week, not so much swimming or biking... hoping to get some in the next few days before I start to rest up for my 8 mile running race coming up next weekend.

Sooo... I was looking at my May totals.  Time wise, I spent more time running than I did biking.  How funny.  That was not conscious.  I would like to make sure to get some biking in for this month though.  For April and May, I've been just shy of 200 biking miles for those months (190/175), so I think I'm going to make my June goal to hit 200.. For swimming, just get to a lake as much as I can, and running, keep building!! (after my race)

I am also anxious for the Tour de France to start. I need to learn more about bikes in general, so I hope to learn from the analysts. 

Tracy, I'm so sorry to hear about that crazy string of events. I was looking forward to hearing what you had to say about the course at Rancho Seco too.

I hope you were able to get home safely after all that.

---

I'll work on my race report and see if I can get it done tonight.

What.....A......Weekend!!!!

First....we're home safe and sound.  Whew!

Second.....my 3 year old had a FANTASTIC weekend!  He got to swim in the lake and in our friend's outdoor pool with a waterfall.  He got to run around in soft green grass in the sprinklers!  He was so stinking cute this weekend!  Our friends were wonderful hosts and I am so thankful that we were able to stay in their home so close to the race site.

If bad things come in three's, I've met my quota, thank you.

The fire.....It was a complete fluke that will probably never, ever happen again.  On Saturday morning, my husband and I were getting our stuff organized to head out to the race site.  I put my travel purse from our honeymoon in Fiji on the seat.  It had my Garmin and HR monitor in it among other things.  My favorite light jacket was on top of the purse.  I threw my clear water bottle on the seat in front of it.  The windows to the truck were wide open because it was getting warm quickly.  My husband was taking stuff out of the back of the truck that did not need to go to the race site (so it wouldn't get stolen) while I went inside with my toddler for a potty break.  When I came back outside, my husband was carrying my smoldering purse and jacket and said that the water bottle made a perfect magnifying glass through the windshield of the truck and set everything on fire!  The stuff took the damage.  No damage to the truck (thank goodness)!  My Garmin has a little melted spot on it but it's working fine.  I haven't tried the HR monitor strap yet.  It doesn't appear to have any damage, though.

I think I'll have to make this post into several over the next day.  Sorry to leave you hanging.  Nighty night time in the owl house.

OK, are you ready for more?  Where was I......

It was fricking HOT for this coastal gal!!!!!  Holy crap!!!!!  No way was I getting on that bike for a ride!  I needed to save all my energy for race day on Sunday!  We got to the race site as everyone was leaving the Sprint race.  I was really bummed that we didn't get there in time to meet John.  I tried. 

I wandered around and got a feel for the transition area and the bike in and out and run in and out.  I found the swim exit.  It was going to be a pretty long run (uphill) to the transition area.  There was a roped off swimming area with lifeguards.  There was ABSOLUTELY no swimming outside the swim area.  It was so hot, there was no way I could get into my wetsuit for a test run so I just left it in its bag.  I swam along the rope line and found that my Garmin was working just fine.  My boys played in the water.  My toddler had to show me how awesome he was at playing in the lake!  We had fun!

We went back to our truck with wetsuit bag (with goggles inside bag), toddler life vest and stuff, etc. in tow.  My toddler was riding his balance bike to and from the swimming area.  We were quite a scene.  At the truck, toddler sat on his portable potty while husband was changing his wet clothes.  Wetsuit was next to potty.  Toddler was done and I scooped him up, put dry clothes on him and loaded him into the truck.  (This takes time for those of you that are uninitiated in tired toddler/car seat exercises.)  Husband loaded all of the "stuff" from outside the truck and we were on our way to drive the bike course.

I'll finish before this night is over!  I promise!