Wednesday fun

Early morning swim of about a 1000 yards, felt good. Afternoon run of about 4 miles (see the link). Numbers: 29:47, pace 7:32. It has been about a week since my last run b/c my foot has been hurting, so to rock a solid 7:30 pace and feel great doing it is very rewarding (and encouraging). We will see how my foot responds later this evening. No heart rate numbers, no strap, but I know I was up there and the last several times I have averaged 7:30 my ahr was 157-159, and mhr high 170's from running up Brady street right at the end.

Pushed a bit

I had only a brief window of opportuniy to run between putting the kids to bed and nightfall so I tried to run fast. I ran about 2.5 miles in 18:27, ahr 157, mhr 173. The first 1.5 I ran super fast (6:40 first mile, 3:35 half mile) then the last mile is uphill and I was cramping in my tummy area so I did a 8 somethin. Next time I will try to hold back a little bit on the first mile and not pansy out. I think I can do it under 18.
I had a great swim this morning (3x50 warm-up, 6x100 freestyle, 1x150 with leg float, 1x100 cool-down) and I am on my way to bed so I can get up early and swim again. Tomorrow afternoon is biking for lunch. John

Early morning run

I did a nice short 6.8 this morning and made it back before anyone else was awake. I had to stop two times to go number two, but other than that the run was decent. My numbers: 54:13, ahr 151, mhr 180. My splits were all between 7:45 and 7:55, so how the heck was my overall pace 7:57? Sure would be nice to have a garmin. You boys get any sun this weekend?

My run for today

Yeah guys, just haven't taken the time to post lately, but I have still been running, biking and swimming. Yesterday I ran in the morning (4 miles, 30:51, ahr 155), swam in the afternoon (~ 800 yards) and biked in the evening (13.8 miles, 40 minutes, ahr 144). I don't feel like doing the math right now but all of my times are a little bit slow for where I am at in my training, thank goodness I have about three weeks left before I taper. Oh wait, no taper this time because I am just including this sprint as a training platform for doing an olympic later this summer. No, I don't know which one yet.
Today I swam at lunch (1000 yards: 50, 100, 150, 200, 200, 150, 100, 50; the upside with flippers, and the downside with my worthless feet) and ran 3 miles in the afternoon, that's the link for this post (22:11, ahr 151, mhr162). That's a not bad time, but I really really want to hit that 5k in under 21 minutes. That would mean alot to me.
Jason, good work, doesn't it feel nice to go fast, get your legs pumping. I find the same thing as you, my legs are the limiting factor, not my heart or lungs. That has to change, but honestly, I don't have the time to devote to being good at biking. Neither do any of us for that matter, but there is always the dream.
Mike, you need to get over your fear of other people and what they think about spandex. There is no substitute for comfort and aeordynamics. I wear trunks and shirts and wouldn't have it any other way. Train like you race, and I will never race again in anything other than spandex. For mountain biking with friends there is no need for it, you don't go fast enough and they don't offer protection. But for the road, try going 18-22 mph with baggy shorts and a loose shirt and tell me what you think. You can literally feel the drag. Anyway, it's your issue, not mine. Welcome to the club brother j.
John Out.
Mike

My favorite speed is . . .

About 18 to 22 mph. Thirty-five mph is too fast for me right now. I don't have near the experience on a bike to be going that fast yet, and slower than 17-18 mph and I feel like I'm dogging it.

I've got an order in to purchase the cadence monitor that hooks up to my Garmin. Then I'll start spending time analyzing staying in the proper cadence zone and I won't worry as much about speed for a little bit.

It was nice to get out anyway. Kristi took the kids down to the Long Beach Aquarium today for my nieces' birthday and she still isn't back yet so I went for a ride. Total was about 14.5 miles in an hour. Some of it was fast and some of it very slow. All of it was fun.

And Mike I did wear all spandex bike clothes. The good thing is I got a material that is almost see through so it actually just looks like I'm riding naked.

Just kidding; I used to ride in my mountain biking shorts with the built in spandex and pad, but on a 20 mile they get very noisy; they're bulky as heck; and the pad isn't as big as my spandex pants. The reason I broke down and got a shirt as well is that bending over on a road bike leaves my back sticking out in all my running shirts, so I opted for the long-in-the-back biking shirt to fight off any chance of plumbers crack.

John must be busy these days. I don't think we've heard from him in weeks. But I can relate. I took a few weeks off from blogging as well. Let's just hope he's not taking the time off from running.

Keep it going guys. Now you've finally got some good weather to get out in. Use it while it lasts.

6.5 mile slow run

Looks like my final pace ended up at 9:05 on average. Some were a bit under 9 and the slowest was 9:26, don't ask me how that ends up a 9:05 average but no big deal. It was a longer run than I have tried in a few years and it felt good to have done it. I started to get pretty dehydrated at the end though and honestly felt like I was going to pass out. The temperature as posted at the MotionBased link in the title says it wasn't that warm but I think I am used to running in the winter-time now and can't take the heat. Hopefully I will get used to it soon.

I have also been biking to school just about every day now. It takes me about 20 minutes and is about 5 miles to get there. I didn't like biking in before because my back and shoulders would get all sweaty underneath my backpack. Now I bought one of those racks for the back and so I just strap my stuff on there and then take a shower when I get to school. It is working out very nicely. Our scale at home broke so now I can only check my weight on campus but it looks like I am going down some and staying there pretty well. Last week I weighed in at 182.3 on Monday and 181.1 on Wednesday. Today I am at 181.7 so I think that is going alright. A month ago I was hitting 185 pretty consistently, even after running. I think the consistent exercise of biking combined with running is doing some good.

New GPS - posting options

Hey guys,

You both know I have the new GPS now and have been using it a bit. Today I have spent way too many hours trying to figure out how to best share the maps with you guys as well as be able to look at them later for myself. I know that MotionBased will store them all for me but that costs money and I don't want to go that route. So I looked at a bunch of free options. Here are the ones that I think I like best. Please let me know what you think so that I can get some feedback on this decision.

1) Use a lesser-known site called maps.innersource.com that has a clean upload interface but a slightly smaller google map. Looks like they will never delete my posts and I can always access them through my account. Sharing is easy too. This option requires me to export the .gpx or .hst file from MotionBased to work so if I ever want to have the map here I need to download it before MotionBased gets rid of it for me. Map: 3-mile Run at the Arb

2) Use Google Earth's sharing feature which is actually a site at bbs.keyhole.com called Google Earth Community. It gives really nice full maps that can be viewed in either Google Earth or in Google Maps. The only downfall to this option is that it is extremely public and many people are actively looking through the forums and new maps that are posted. One of mine that I posted was literally viewed 13 times in the three hours after I posted it. Map: Hudson Mills

3) Just use MotionBased and realize that the online map will only be available for a few weeks or until I get 9 more routes posted. While it is available it gives you many more stats and links to view it in either Google Earth or Google Maps. It is also a bit strange that you can get so much information without being logged in though. Map: 5-mile Run from home to Lilley Park

I tried one more option that was actually hosting a site myself with my own access to Google's Map service. Unfortunately it's not going to work out so I bagged out on that option. Anyway, let me know what you think!