Tech, Life, and Triathlon...

Referencing third-party library source code in a GWT project.

2012-01-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

It turns out the process is slightly involved - especially when Maven is added to the mix. I don't know if this is the blessed way of solving this issue, but it works.

The first thing I had to do was modify the third-party library POM so that it builds the source jars. This can easily be done by adding the following plugin:

  <plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-source-plugin</artifactId>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <version>2.1.2</version>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <id>attach-sources-jar</id>
        <phase>verify</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>jar-no-fork</goal>
        </goals>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>

Then, I had to run a build/install of the third-party library to install the sources in my local repo.

Next, I needed to modify the gwt-maven-plugin in my project's POM to tell it to compile the sources for my third-party library. For this, I needed the groupId and artifactId of the third-party library. I had already added this as a dependency in my project's POM and was simply able get the information from there. I then had to modify gwt-maven-plugin plugin's configuration element (in the execution element) to add the compileSourcesArtifacts element as follows:

  <compileSourcesArtifacts>
    <compileSourcesArtifact>groupId:artifactId</compileSourcesArtifact>
  <compileSourcesArtifacts>

Where the text "groupId:artifactId" are the actual groupId and artifactId of my third-party library - don't forget the colon character!

Next, I had to note the package name in the third-party library where the objects I wanted to use were located. For this example, let's assume that this package is "com.foo.bar.bat".

I added a package to my GWT project called "com.foo.bar" leaving out the final "sub-package" of "bat." In this package, I created a new gwt.xml (e.g. Foo.gwt.xml) file and used the artifactId as the name capitalizing the first letter (I don't know if this is necessary but it seems convention in GWT). I then populated this file with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE module PUBLIC
  "-//Google Inc.//DTD Google Web Toolkit 1.6.4//EN"
  "http://google-web-toolkit.googlecode.com/svn/tags/2.4.0/distro-source/core/src/gwt-module.dtd">
<module>
  <source path="bat"/>
</module>

Note that the value of the "path" attribute is the final "sub-package" I left out above. Additionally, this tells GWT to try and generate JavaScript for ALL the classes in the "bat" package. If there are classes that you want to be ignored, change the <source> element to a block-level element and add a child element called <exclude> that has one attribute called "name" that contains the name of the Java file to ignore, e.g., "Bar.java".

Finally, I added a module inherit dependency to my project's gwt.xml file: <inherits name="com.foo.bar.Foo"/>. Note that I used the capitalized name of the artifactId as the module.

Using Spring and MyBatis for non-POJO Data Retrieval

2011-12-13T14:58:00.000-08:00

This post will be part one of two dealing with data retrieval in Spring with MyBatis. This post in particular will discuss data retrieval whereby you have a situation where you do not have a DB Schema-to-POJO relationship, e.g. in a properties or settings table.

I won't get into how to set up a Spring datasource bean and will assume you already have one in your Spring config file. In your Spring config file, per http://code.google.com/p/mybatis/wiki/Spring, add a new bean to configure your SqlSessionFactory using the datasource you defined above.

Next, the mybatis-spring library allows us to wire up things automagically (without declaring our mappers in XML) with the following:

<!-- scan for mappers and let them be autowired -->
<bean class="org.mybatis.spring.mapper.MapperScannerConfigurer">
  <property name="basePackage" value="com.foo.persistence"/>
</bean>

This tells the scanner to recursively scan the com.foo.persistence package and create Spring beans for each mapper it finds. If you're using only one datasource, you don't even need to wire that in as the scanner will take care of this for you.

Next, you'll need to create a mapper class like so:

package com.foo.persistence;

import org.apache.ibatis.annotations.Insert;
import org.apache.ibatis.annotations.Param;
import org.apache.ibatis.annotations.Select;

public interface SettingsMapperInterface {

  @Select("SELECT value FROM settings WHERE name = #{name}")
  String getValue(@Param("name") String name);

  @Insert("INSERT INTO settings VALUES(#{name}, #{value})")
  void setValue(@Param("name") String name,
                @Param("value") String value);
}

This defines two methods, one for getting a value from our settings table and one for inserting a value into our settings table. Note that the package name matches what we defined as the "basePackage" for the scanner bean above. Remember that this is recursive so we could have put this in package "com.foo.persistence.settings" and it would still work. In fact, for larger systems, organizing your mappers by package is probably not a bad idea.

Next, let's define a Spring service that is responsible for interacting with the database. This is our DAO layer or business layer. We don't want to pollute our controller with business logic and vice versa - i.e., we don't want to put any UI or action logic in our business layer. Here's what the service class looks like:

package com.foo.service;

import com.foo.persistence.SettingsMapperInterface;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional;

@Service
public class SettingService {

  public String getValue(String name) {
    return this.settingsMapper.getValue(name);
  }

  @Transactional
  public void setValue(String name, String value) {
    this.settingsMapper.setValue(name, value);
  }

  @Autowired
  private SettingsMapperInterface settingsMapper;
}

Recall how we said above that the scanner automatically creates Spring beans for each of our mappers. Here, you can see we are autowiring this bean into our service class. One note on IDEs, my IntelliJ instance complains about there not being a bean defined with the SettingsMapperInterface type. This is annoying, but it's not a problem. At the time of this writing, I could not find any MyBatis support for IntelliJ.

Finally, we can autowire our service up like any other bean as follows:

package com.foo.controller;

import com.foo.service.SettingService;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

@Controller
public class SettingController {

  @RequestMapping(value = "/foo/getSetting",
                  method = RequestMethod.GET)
  public void getSetting(HttpServletRequest request,
                         HttpServletResponse response) {

    String settingName = request.getParameter("settingName");
    String settingValue = this.settingService.getValue(settingName);

    // do something with "settingValue"
  }

  @Autowired
  private SettingService settingService;
}

Here, we pull the name of the setting we want to retrieve off of the request as a parameter (called "settingName") and pass it to the service method for retrieving a setting's value from the database. We can then take this value and do anything we want with it.

Reading Spring Controller and RequestMapping Definitions

2011-12-05T12:29:00.001-08:00

My current, major task at work is to bring two existing web applications into one utilizing a single-signon mechanism and overhaul the UI based on my recommendations previously made. Part of the background architecture work involved in allowing the creation of a menu structure that would ultimately be utilized to create a similar structure in the UI.

I wanted to use JAXB to unmarshall my menu XML into Java objects but I suspect the complex nature of the XML schema and some limitations of the JAXB framework combined with my lack of a complete understanding of JAXB hindered this process to such a degree that I had to stop due to the time I was spending on it. So, instead of getting the created objects "for free" I had to resort to writing my own SAX Parser event handler to build up the menu structure in Java land. I had tried a DOM-based approach first, but the recursive nature of the elements made me cringe a bit while writing the code and if you ever have the thought of "there's got to be an easier way to do this" while writing code, your best bet is to just flat out stop what you are doing and take some time to thoroughly think things through before spending any more time on the task.

The event handler also built up the menu item URI paths using attributes on the hierarchical menu structure in the menu XML. This gave the menu item actions (arbitrary) name-spacing. I say arbitrary because when using Spring MVC with only one DispatcherServlet, the URI paths are essentially meaningless.

One other thing I wanted to ensure was that we would never have a dangling menu item - that is a menu item defined (and in the UI) but not actually tied back to a Spring Controller method. So, I created a unit test that loads my menu XML, pulls a list of all the RequestMapping annotated methods, and confirms that every menu item ties back to a server-side method.

Here's the code:


  Map<String, Object> controllers =
    this.ctx.getBeansWithAnnotation(Controller.class);
  for(Map.Entry<String, Object> entry : controllers.entrySet()) {

    Class controllerClass = entry.getValue().getClass();
    for(Method method : controllerClass.getDeclaredMethods()) {

      RequestMapping rm =
        method.getAnnotation(RequestMapping.class);
      if(rm == null) {
        continue;
      }
      else {

        String[] vals = rm.value();
        if (vals.length == 1) {
          this.mappingSet.add(vals[0]);
        }
        else {
          String msg =
            "this test assumes only one request mapping per method.  " +
            "check class: " + controllerClass + " and method: " + method;
          Assert.fail(msg);
        }
      }
    }
  }

Two notes:

The reference "this.ctx" refers to a Spring ApplicationContext, in my case here an instance of the XmlWebApplicationContext class that loads my Spring configuration.
The reference "this.mappingSet" is simply a class-local field (HashSet<String>) in which I simply store the RequestMapping values.

Finally, after this is complete I confirm that every menu item action URI is contained in the set of extracted RequestMapping values.

Five Weeks Post-Op

2011-12-02T10:30:00.001-08:00

Today I'm five weeks out from knee surgery and it's doing awesome. I started swimming again and after a hectic November travel schedule with a fifth anniversary vacation to Jamaica followed five days later by a trip to the in-laws for Thanksgiving I hope to establish more of a training routine because quite frankly I've lost my fitness and put on a little extra weight. I'm not so much worried about the weight because it was gained from doing nothing for the first three weeks after the surgery and I gained nothing over Thanksgiving (a rare feat). But I am disappointed about the loss of fitness because it's so damn hard to get back at first, i.e., the first week or two suck.

I remember when I took four months off after IM CDA in 2009 to let my foot fully heal that the first week or two I struggled to even run a mile. Now that all the travelling is out of my schedule for the foreseeable future, I can start a training schedule again: Master's swimming 2x a week and some trainer time. I've been allowed to ride the trainer, but haven't gotten around to even setting it up yet. This weekend for sure....along with all the other crap I have on my list.

Busy Summer: Injury and Fatherhood

2011-09-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

There won't be a part II. It's been too long and I really don't want to relive that day again. Psychologists would say the more you talk about a thing, the less that thing holds power over you. Yea, I can live with that for now.

My first race of the season was also my last race. About a week prior to my first race, the Summer Open Triathlon in mid-May, I started having right knee issues. I figured I could fix it on my own but it just never got better. I saw Matt at Altitude for a ton of sessions and got to the point where I was able to run again pain free but it didn't last. I've now not run since early August and now the pain manifests itself randomly after bike rides.

I've officially hung up the tri and road bikes opting for some quality mountain biking. It was clear from the first few rides that being fearless on a road bike is easy but being fearless on a mountain bike requires cojones I don't know that I will ever possess. That said, my bike handling skills are improving and I have been able to navigate some rough terrain with increasing ease. I suspect this will change when I have my first wipeout, but so far, my clothes have remained clean.

This past Saturday I did an epic, 2.5 hour trail ride covering some 30 miles. I don't have the climbing data, but I'm sure it was in the multiple thousands of feet. That afternoon, I could barely walk because of my knee. Sunday was a bit rough as well and I would have to randomly do some stretches to get it to stop hurting.

Recalling something Uli mentioned at Master's swim about how, possibly, bike position might aggravate the injury I made an appointment to see Mark Plaatjes to get a different take on the injury and fixing it.

Fatherhood has been fantastic. It's really cool to see the development of a child - to see when they first start learning even the most basic of things, like smiling. It's also a lot of work because they require nearly constant attention when awake which can be very mentally draining. Elin is sitting up now and rolls around quite a bit. She's starting to figure out how to pull her knees up under her and I suspect she will be crawling within a few months.

Husband, anchor...daddy - Part I

2011-02-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

At 12:54 PM on February 10th, 2011, Elin Hannah Gordon was born. Until about 5 minutes before this time the pregnancy and labor was normal if not routine (I will not go so far as to say that labor is easy - given the amount of pain my wife was in during some of her contractions). The next 3.5 days were anything but.

At around 11:30 AM, my wife was fully dilated and ready to push. She pushed for around an hour with the baby not moving. The baby was face out and LOC, essentially at ~10 o'clock facing my wife. The ideal position is face in toward the spine, however no amount of rotating got her to rotate correctly. at 12:30, we were told that the baby had not come down any and that it didn't really make a whole lot of sense to push for another several hours only to have to have a Caesarean anyway so we made the decision to go ahead and have one. I went ahead and texted various family members thus. What I can only imagine as hell for them, the next time I spoke to most of them was over 3 hours later with my phone going crazy during that time.

Around 12:48 or so the anesthesiologist came in and administered a Caesarean dose into my wife's epidural and an antibiotic for the operation to prevent infection. Not long after that my wife complained of having trouble breathing and our OB said that this was perfectly normal. The epidural medicine numbs everything downward from the insertion point which includes the diaphragm - the muscles that control breathing. During the approximately 40 seconds it took to walk from our labor and delivery room (my wife on the labor and delivery bed) to the OR my wife continuously complained of it being very difficult to breathe to which our nurse replied that this was completely normal. By the time we got to the doors of the OR, my wife was in a bit of a panic and this was the last thing she remembered until 2 AM on Friday.

What happened next is something I can only hope no one ever has to experience. Ever.

They wheeled my wife's bed into the OR and I sat on a stool by the doors watching as my wife passed out and stopped breathing - her lips turning blue. The people in the OR were busy prepping the table to transfer my wife over and didn't notice for several seconds. Then they noticed and all hell broke lose. Those next 60 seconds were quite a blur as several ran to the wall and there was some confusion for several seconds as to the alarm to pull and what to say. Seconds later, the lever pulled an announcement was made (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact words) "Code yellow, labor and delivery OR. Code yellow, labor and deliver OR." Within seconds there were probably 40 people in the OR. I remember them talking, but not about what. I was just sitting there watching. Finally, I was kicked out by one of the anesthesiologists to go next door to what was the recovery room for women who have "routine" Caesareans performed - my wife never made it into that room and instead went straight to the ICU.

I was in that room for maybe a minute or two before someone came in and said "Congratulations, time of birth 12:54." They then asked if I wanted to go in and [re]cut the umbilical cord (as the baby station is about 15 feet away from the operating table, the OB cuts the cord leaving enough for dad to cut it again). Seeing the clock on the baby station, I realized (and this was confirmed later by my OB) that the baby was removed within seconds of my leaving. Typical Caesarians take around five minutes to get the baby out. My wife's was done in under one. After cutting my daughter's cord and inquiring about her 2nd Apgar score I carried her next door to watch her get her vitamin K shot, the eye gook they put in to prevent infection, and some blood draw on her heel (I think for sugar?).

After that they took the baby away to do more things and I must have had ten different doctors and staff members come in to talk to me. I don't remember anything they said. At some point I left to go up to the well-baby nursery (which is part of the NICU, but for healthy babies) to feed Elin for the first time. I fed and burped her and then was taken back downstairs to wait for my wife to be rolled out of the OR. We followed her and her entourage of doctors to the elevator where six or eight of them got on the elevator with them and myself and 4 others took the stairs one floor down. We met them at the elevator and walked to the ICU where I was promptly not allowed in. I suspect it was around 2 PM at this point.

I was escorted back upstairs and I realized my Dad and stepmom had been there for an hour and I'd not spoken to them since the aforementioned text I sent just prior to the Caesarean decision. They'd heard the code yellow and managed to get some nurses to tell them that it was Rachel so they knew what to expect. I found them in the waiting room and hugging and sobs ensued. I had (and still do) have a lot of pent up emotion about everything that had transpired. I went to get Elin from the nursery and by this time she'd had a bath and was fed, clean, swaddled, and content. With my parents, I wheeled her back to the room in which they were letting me stay. At some point someone came to say that I could finally go into the ICU to see Rachel so I dropped Elin back off at the nursery and went down with my parents. At some point during all of this, my parents forced me to eat a sandwich as I'd not eaten since around seven or eight that morning.

I had them wait outside as I went into her ICU room and words cannot describe that sight. Rachel was hooked up to every possible machine imaginable, including a respirator, with a tube down her throat. That's not a sight I would wish for anyone to see. She was completely unconscious and unresponsive to my voice.

I don't remember how long I was there but eventually went back upstairs and said goodbye to my parents insisting that I didn't need anything. Next to arrive was my friend Ashley and then her fiancé, Dov. They helped me get my clothes and stuff from the car to bring to the room. I don't remember if they saw Elin then or not but at some point they, too left. My sister came down last and met her boyfriend Matt there. By that time I had gotten Elin from the nursery and needed to do some bonding as I'd really only seen her twice since the ordeal began. My sister held her for a while and after they left I removed my shirt and lay on the bed for some skin-to-skin contact with my daughter, which is über important for the bonding. We lay there for 30-45 minutes and when I started to realize that I was dozing off, I brought her back to the nursery. I returned to my room, got ready for bed and passed out.

Different Strokes

2011-02-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years I've asked my Master's swim instructor about proper stroke technique. To his credit each time he's said the same thing. I don't know if something just finally clicked or I actually started paying attention to my stroke and applying what he said because when your stroke is on, you really move and it seems to take less effort.

He said it makes sense because when your stroke mechanics are on, you are using more than just your arms. Your lats, back, and core all get involved and with the added muscles, you have more power and if you're rotating your body correctly, you have less drag. I believe this is why when he gave us a 6x[100m @1:20, 75m @1:25] I was actually able to do the 100s and still get rest when normally 1:20 is way out of my league. This was Tuesday. Last night we had 4x300m @4:30 with increasing blocks of 25s in between. While the 300s were on a 1:30 base, I was getting at least 10 seconds rest after each one and it was without paddles. In fact, I didn't need paddles the entire workout - which is a first for me in a while.

I hope the speed continues in the water and carries over to my races.

The Last Run

2010-12-16T15:11:00.000-08:00

I went on my last run at lunch today; my last run because my last day is tomorrow.

It was cold out but wasn't unbearable in the sun. And after I started my intervals, I stopped feeling the cold.

Afterwards it felt weird to finish cleaning out my locker in a room that used to be our janitor's closet but was now our company locker room (complete with showers). The vultures started circling and contacting me several days ago inquiring as to the availability of my locker. We now have over 100 employees and only 12 lockers. Locker space wasn't such a problem when there were only 30 of us.

The way to leave a company is definitely to start taking your stuff home with you at least a week in advance. Tomorrow, I leave with what I came with, and just an external hard drive, a coffee mug, and the water bottle sitting on my desk. I wish I could take my dual monitors, but I think my new company gives developers dual monitors so my withdrawal won't be for long.

Moving On [Up?]

2010-12-07T14:05:00.000-08:00

I put my two weeks notice in at work yesterday. I've been here for almost five years, by far my longest stint (by two years) at any one job. I'm leaving not because of a Gen Y itch or because I don't feel I'm adequately compensated. Rather, I'm not really in the same role as I was when I was hired. Let me elaborate:

When I started, there were ~20 of us and only 5 engineers. We had two QA resources and the 7 of us reported to the CTO and COO. We had one person doing support. I was hired to essentially build a new and comprehensive web application from the ground up. Being in that role made me the go-to person for support and any issues. I never really realized how much I fed off the feedback and interactions that were required.

Something changed earlier this year. I don't know if a bit just flipped in my head or what, but I just started thinking about moving on. I dragged my feet for months before finally pulling the trigger and started looking. Ironically, that week, I got two phone calls at work from head hunters. I NEVER get calls at work. They didn't really pan out and I stopped looking until another engineer, who was one of the afore mentioned five, left about 5 weeks ago. At that point, I felt it was ok to start looking.

I wound up finding and applying for two very different positions and getting two very different offers. One was for a $15K pay raise while the other was for a 10% pay cut. It turns out, I took the pay cut for the promise of being happy and fulfilled again. I wasn't wild about the pay cut; especially since my wife is almost 8 months pregnant and is taking 6 months off from work. But I did manage to negotiate a 6-month review which will hopefully result in getting some of that back.

One of the better things that the new company will offer is that not only does my sister work there as well, but it's located in Boulder, 15 minutes or so from my house and 10 min from the gym. Hopefully that will bode well for my training.

If Facebook existed back in the day...

2010-10-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

A Season Reflected

2010-09-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

Having meant to write this soon after my last race in July, it's finally high time I write about this season that has, bar none, been my best ever - including my first season racing Triathlon in which I finished the season with a searing 2:22 at Pine Barrens. In that race, the swim was short and my run was still 50+.

While my running has steadily improved, I had gotten insanely slow on the bike from doing long course/70.3's and culminating with IM CDA last year and given that the bike represents the bulk of the race, speed here is imperative. I dropped my coach after IM CDA as my season was over and it quite obviously didn't make sense to continue to pay him. After speaking with several pros here in Boulder, I realized that essentially, in order to get faster, I had to shake things up. And shake them up I did.

I not only raced only OLY and shorter this season, but with some early season plyometrics training with Will Kelsay (Timex) and some mid-spring coaching sessions with Billy Edwards (Gu). Some very simple guidance from Billy made me find my speed again on the bike - and I wound up getting faster on the run as well. For posterity, the guidance was to include short, Z5 interval training and longer, Z4 interval training. The Z5 work on the bike was literally 1-2min repeats and 400s on the track for the run. The Z4 work was 10-20min repeats on the bike and tempo runs.

That's really it. I provided my own motivation, went to Master's swim class 2-3 times per week, and did Z2 runs and rides the rest of the time. The key here is that it worked for me. I think all too often, we as athletes (myself included) have looked through countless magazines looking for the silver bullet workout or training session when the fact remains that there is none. What works for Chrissie Wellington will probably not work for the rest of us. We each need to find our own training regimin that works.

I think I've finally found mine.....at least, for OLY and shorter.

How I Wish to be Awoken: An open letter to my dogs

2010-07-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Bajan and Luna, (think Cajun with a "B")

There seems to be some confusion as to when and how it's appropriate to wake me up in the mornings. This letter is an attempt at defining those rules and guidelines.

I realize you are both Labs and thus, by definition, blood, genes, breeding, whatever, you guys love food. However, it is never acceptable to wake me up early because you are hungry....ever.

It is especially inappropriate to wake me from a deep, REM-filled slumber at say, 4AM, with the sounds of gagging followed by the liquid slushing sound of stomach regurgitation. And when that regurgitated matter consists of mainly consumed dog poop from the back yard (the reason you probably puked to begin with) and it's putrid stench fills our room, you should know that it's only out of my undying love for you (because you keep my feet warm when you sleep under my desk) that I don't make you rue the day you were born. The fact that the vomit contains bits of last night's dinner and some blades of grass as well, does not get you off the hook.

It is likewise both inconsiderate and blatantly obnoxious to wake me up at 4AM with the lovely sounds of retching to the point where I actually think you're dying. And when I, in my sleep-induced stupor shove you off of our new bedroom carpet and onto the hardwood floor it is not out of anger, but rather the desire to not have to spend an hour scrubbing and vacuuming up the stench of regurgitated poop vomit. However, I do appreciate it when you don't actually vomit but rather only cough up some blades of grass, which are most easily cleaned - especially off the hardwood floors.

Words cannot even begin to describe the level of detestability when, nary an hour or so after the previous vomit attempt you wake up the entire neighborhood with your maniacal barking due to a squirrel blundering accidentally into our yard via the top of a fence. Normally I would find it rather humorous as you dance between the trees hoping for a glimpse of the chattering rodent now berating you for scaring the bejeezus out of him. Additionally, it is normally quite humorous to watch you slink away from the trees and stand just far enough away to let the squirrel think you are gone only to pounce when he dares climb down the tree trunk. I say normally because at 5AM, nothing is funny. Not even your squirrel-induced antics.

So please consider this a notice, if you will, of what is acceptable behavior in our house and what is not and refrain from doing the above ever again.

Sincerely,

Master

Race Report: Boulder Peak Triathlon

2010-07-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

I should really label this race "Reality Check" because that's what it was - read on for more.

The Boulder Peak Triathlon is a prestigious race. I have no idea where it ranks on a national list of Olympic distance triathlons, but I'd bet money that it's at or near the top. It's prestigious enough that the top 3 amateur male and female athletes can automatically obtain pro cards if they so choose. This means the race is competitive - very competitive. To give you an idea of how competitive, in the 5430 Sprint and Loveland Lake-to-Lake triathlons (in which I competed four and three weeks ago respectively), I placed 20th and 16th, respectively, in my age group. In the Boulder Peak Triathlon, I placed 39th.

While the race started at 6:30 and although my wave didn't go off until 7:05, I woke up a little bit on the early side - partially due to setting the alarm incorrectly and partially due to traditional pre-race night, poor sleeping. One positive fallout from this, however, was that I was able to find a decent racking spot for my bike. I ran into Rob and Oier in the parking lot and Rob again in transition. After setting up our gear, we went for a warm-up run. We ran into Oier about the time we were turning around and checking out the far East side of the swim course. We ran back and said good luck to each other as we split up at transition. I finished setting up my gear and got in line for the toilets.

I made it out of the toilet with about three minutes to spare before transition closed. I then realized I hadn't put on body glide or sun screen so I quickly did both attempting to be sure that I didn't miss any glaring spots as the sky was cloudless and while it was still pretty chilly, it's rather easy to get sunburned here if one isn't careful. I grabbed my wetsuit, cap, and goggles stuffing a Gu into my cap (knowing I'd want it before my wave started but not needing it so early before my wave start time) I made my way towards the water. I found a grassy patch and methodically put on my wetsuit.

I had plenty of time to get a decent warm up in on the swim and while it was ok, for some reason I didn't feel like 100% in the water. I don't know if it was nerves or something else but it was definitely something. Less than 10 minutes before my wave went off, I got out, walked over to the water station and ate my Gu. I then went over to the front of the corral where the people in my wave were grouped. A minute or so after the wave in front of ours went off, we were let in and I went out and practiced a swim start before turning around and lined up with the start buoys.

A few minutes later we were off and as is typical with triathlon swim starts, the first 50 meters were a churning mass of arms and legs as people jockeyed for position. I swam over people as people swam over me. I expected it to settle out after a few hundred meters, but for some reason it wasn't. As I turned to breath or lift my head to sight, I saw many other swimmers with the same colored swim cap as myself and my first thought was that I was swimming a lot slower than normal. My other thought was that somehow I was with the lead pack. The pack of green caps lasted until the first yellow turn buoy when we started mixing with swimmers from earlier waves. That helped break everyone up and I thought I finally had some open water to swim. Rounding the second and last turn buoy, I accidentally swam up over someone else in my wave because he decided to take the turn tight and cut me off. As I slid off him to the right and kept swimming I felt a hard blow to my head and after a second realized that the guy had actually punched me. I was shocked but as I kept swimming just let it go because I found a pair of feet to draft off. As is typical with drafting in the water, it's so much easier to swim behind someone one has to watch their speed to keep from swimming up on the person one is drafting. Additionally, several times I felt he was going too slow and tried to pass only to find that I was unable. All of a sudden, the guy stopped and started doing the breaststroke and I wound up getting kicked pretty hard in the face. I remember yelling out "Fuuuuck!" as I turned to breathe. My jaw is still sore a day later.

I came out of the water and my run up towards T1 was without incident. I ran straight to my bike, pulled off the remainder of my wetsuit, put on my shoes, helmet, and glasses, grabbed a Gu and ran out mounting at the line. I consumed most of the Gu before exiting the res but wasn't able to wash it down with anything until a few moments later. As soon as I hit the first hill out of the res, my rear derailleur started jumping gears. I'd put a new chain on last week and while I ran through the gears on Saturday to ensure smooth shifting, apparently it was quite different when the chain is under a heavy load. I managed to figure it out soon enough so it wasn't driving me crazy (though it still skipped around at times) and was officially cruising along on the bike.

The first five or six miles are all uphill with only slight reprieves along the way - false flats, if you will. However, once you turn onto Lee Hill from 36, the road noticeably tilts upwards. The closer you get to the mouth of the canyon and Old Stage, the more it tilts up. In fact, before you even hit the Lee Hill and Old Stage intersection the road sucks. Crossing through the stop sign at the Lee Hill begins the brutal climb that is Old Stage. As I did in training, I refrained from standing on my pedals and just pedaled up. I was being passed by guys in my age group, but I had a disc wheel and they didn't and I knew I would catch back up on the way down. Finally, I crested the first and hardest part of the hill and cranked into a higher gear to get some speed for the next section. The speed served me well and I was able to fly up the second section as it wasn't nearly as steep. Upon cresting the top of Old Stage I took some deep breaths and let it fly keeping my eye open for the speed trailer and the cop with the radar gun.

You see, due to several folks ending up under cars in 2005, a speed limit of 35mph was instituted by the race organizers. I remember the 2005 race and specifically the ambulance flying past me on the steep part of Old Stage. Additionally, I remember seeing the body under the car as I flew by the accident. Amazingly the guy survived.

I saw the trailer and that I was going too fast but still didn't see the cop. I slowed down and as I rounded the slight left bend at the bottom I saw him. Once I passed him I really opened it up and started flying by people, including those who passed me near the bottom of the front side of Old Stage. The rest of the bike is just a blur, but I remember hammering most of the way.

Having royally screwed up my dismount at Lake-to-Lake, I kept reminding myself to pull my feet out of my shoes before getting too close to the dismount line. I remembered far enough in advance to where I was able to hit the line and into T2. I knew where my racking spot was but I couldn't find it. I actually had to run back out to the end of the row and make sure I was in the correct row. I was, and just simply didn't see it. I should have, as my stuff was in the first rack of the row but I just missed it. Once I found it I dumped my helmet, got on my socks and shoes, grabbed my visor, race belt, and Cliff Bloks and got the hell out of T2. I popped a blok immediately and followed with some water right at the T2 exit and as I rounded the first corner to head out on the road portion of the run, I noticed my knee was bothering me.

It was my left knee and it hurt in the exact same spot as it did months ago. I was given an exorcise to do to strengthen my gluteus medius muscle (basically, the outside of the butt - in this case to the left of my left butt cheek). After the pain went away then, I stopped doing the exercises. However, during the early part of the week before Lake-to-Lake, the pain came back and I did the exercises enough to have it go away in time for the race. This time, however, there was no pain during the week and so I didn't do the exercises.

The pain was pretty bad and I didn't know if I'd be able to finish. After dwelling on that for about 10 seconds, I told myself to just take one step at at time and not think about it. I was hoping it would go away or at the very least I would forget about it. But something even better happened. As soon as I hit the dirt section of the run, about 2/3 of a mile into the run, the pain went away. Since the run was out and back, most of the course was dirt and I wouldn't be back on the pavement until I had less than a mile left. I wasn't sure how hard to push it on the run. I felt ok, but there was no cloud cover and the run is completely exposed. It wasn't hot yet, but it was getting there.

About the time I reached the first water station, a little past mile one, I was warm and while I popped another blok and took a sip of water, I dumped the rest on my head. I repeated the process at the second and third aid stations. On the way back, I saw my sister (whom I passed about 1/2 mile before the Jay Road and 51st intersection) and Oier. Approaching the middle aid station (a little after mile four) I stopped with the bloks and just did water and a sip of Gatorade. I repeated the process for the last aid station at mile five. I was running pretty well but I saw a few of the people in my age group pass me. I wanted to catch back up but I just couldn't will myself to go any faster.

I hit the end of the damn and ran onto the road for that last half mile. My knee was fine and I wanted to finish strong but found I wasn't able to up my tempo much before feeling the effects. As I approached the last turn to the finishing chute, I made a quick glance back to make sure no one was on my heels and cruised down the finishing chute where I saw the clock. Knowing I started 35 minutes down I realized I just missed my goal of breaking 2:30:00 by around 20 seconds - most of which, I realized later, were wasted in transition. What hurt a little more, however, was that there was only 22 seconds separating 35th place from 39th place in my age group. I got 39th.

Now, out of 163 in my age group, that's not bad and it shows just how competitive this race was. But after placing 20th and 16th at the sprint and Lake-to-Lake, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed with the placing even though I was totally stoked about the time.

The Stats:

39/163 AG; 187/1363 OA; 162/812 Male

Swim: 25:41 (1:42/100m; 22/163 AG; 143 OA)
T1: 1:15
Bike: 1:13:58 (21.1mph; 46/163 AG; 190 OA)
T2: 1:20
Run: 48:12 (7:47/mi; 52/163 AG; 316 OA)

Total: 2:30:23

Race Report: Loveland Lake-to-Lake Triathlon

2010-06-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

As the name of the race suggests, the race was in Loveland. This required a bit of a drive to get there with ample time to take care of all pre-race necessities. In turn, this required getting up ungodly early for a weekend: 3:50AM...for a race...why am I doing triathlon again?

I carpooled up with my friend Oier who was also doing the race and needed a ride. I don't think we gave ourselves enough time. We had to park on the far East side of the high school that served as the staging point for the race and walk clear to the far West side with our gear just to get into the line to get into transition. We split up because he had to use the bathroom, and I was getting a little anxious. I probably waited in line for 10 minutes or so before being able to get into the transition area and my heart sank: nearly every rack looked full. Standing there and pondering my next move, I noticed that the first rack (right by the bike in/out) contained only 7 bikes and they allow 8. So, I'm standing there staring at the rack figuring out how to squeeze in without pissing anyone off when a woman standing there asked if I wanted to rack there. I was like HELL YES and racked my bike immediately.

Unfortunately, as with most racks in transition, when I have the 20oz water bottles in the cage behind my seat, the bike doesn't fit under the bar. A time saving tip is to load your bike in facing out (so it hangs by the seat) so you can pop it off and go. So, the bottles when on the ground on my transition towel. Turns out, 2 16oz bottles would have been sufficient, but you never know and better safe than sorry. I set up my spot with everything where I liked it and with 25 minutes until my wave started, I figured I had plenty of time to get a good swim warmup in. I was wrong.

I walked the ~1/4 mile from transition to the swim start (and yes, you have to run back as part of your swim after you exit the water) and while I was wiggling into my wetsuit I heard someone with a megaphone telling swimmers to get out of the water. Wetsuit on, I ignored that and went in the water anyway, but not wanting to be THAT GUY didn't stray too far from the shore and managed to get in about 2-3 minutes of something that would normally resemble a swim warmup were it not a race.

They started the Elites and 35-39 M/F age groups all together and as the first wave - beach start. If you've never seen a beach start for a triathlon, picture a huge crowd of people (for Ironman it's over 2000) all running into the water racing to be first because it's easier to let people pass you at the swim start than to try and pass people. The water becomes a churning mess of legs and arms and it's all you can do to not get kicked or hit (or god forbid, have your goggles knocked off).

The horn went off and so were we. I was in the second row behind the Elites but it didn't matter. There were arms and legs everywhere. I did manage to keep my goggles on though - so that was good. The first leg was a short, probably 75m dog leg straight out from shore before a 90-degree turn to the left and out into the lake. I'm not sure if the folks who put on this race just don't have enough buoys or chose not to use them but the 800m leg out only had 2 buoys and the second was for our next left turn. The back stretch of the swim also had only two buoys while the finishing leg had more however maybe they ran out because still several hundred meters from shore, there was nothing left to sight on so I just followed the swimmers in front of me hoping they knew something I didn't. I finally saw two small yellow things on the shore that I guessed marked the swim exit and headed in that direction. I was right and finally got out of the water.

I ran up a 100 feet or so and then stopped to take off my wetsuit as I didn't want to be running in it for 400m. I think this was a good idea for me at least since the legs on my wetsuit are 5mil. Running into transition I found my primo racking spot and promptly screwed everything up. I took my bike off the rack to put the water bottles in before I had put on my shoes, helmet, or glasses so I had to lay my bike down while I did all that. Getting everything taken care of I was off.

To describe the bike course as hilly would be a gross understatement. Immediately after exiting the HS parking lot and turning West, the rollers essentially started and my legs felt terrible. My thoughts turned to only having 5 days off between races and what I did during those 5 days. I wondered if I'd be able to even finish the bike. Thankfully, the road leveled out and I felt better. Within the first 3 miles and before leaving the town, there was a fairly technical series of turns whereby the road swept right before curving back to the left followed by a rather hard left. This section was also on a down hill so I was carrying some speed when I hit the hard left and everythign would have been fine except I started pedaling too soon and as my left foot came down the pedal struck the road making that god awful sound that no cyclist ever wants to hear - especially in a crit. Thankfully I didn't go down and as I recovered I shook my head knowing how stupid and lucky I just was.

After some rollers and turns, I finally got to Glade Rd which I was going to be on for a while. It's basically up hill for probably 5 miles with some sections steeper than others. I'm not sure if it was my choice of wheels (I was using my disc) or the slight headwind, but I really struggled on this stretch. At the end, there's a bit of a breather descent before making a right and beginning the long, slow climb up to the West side of Horsetooth. The hill isn't terribly steep, but it's LONG. Still, I did better on that hill than on Glade because it was at least steady and I'd done the climbs a few times before. At the top, there's a long, screaming descent that wasn't too technical before transitioning right into the next monster hill that would take me to the overlook on the far South end of the lake. That hill was much shorter and steeper than the previous, yet I found it easier still and tempoed my way up. At the top there's another long, screaming descent with a fairly tight 180 at the bottom - sort of switchback like. I only barely had to tap the brakes before hitting the final stretch of road that takes you around the side of the lake before peeling off back towards Ft. Collins.

At the very bottom, we make the normally dreaded right on to Taft Hill Rd. This road usually sucks because there's almost always a headwind when I ride it and it's also at like mile 60 of long training rides from Boulder. Today was different. Not only did I not have 60 miles already in my legs, but we had a really nice tailwind which allowed me to absolutely fly over those huge, nasty rollers that go all the way South until you hit the outskirts of Loveland. Additionally, they had block off the entire Southbound side of the road so we had zero cars to deal with. It was rather nice. A few more turns and I was on the last road essentially back to the HS only this time they had the entire left half of the road blocked off for the racers so we got to ride on the left side of the road and had two full lanes plus a bike lane to spread out.

I use that last term loosely because one drawback of being in the first wave is that there's not many people in front of you. I recall stretches where I would look forward and backward and not see another racer (let alone a car) whereas at last week's sprint (in which I was in the third wave) I was not only passing people on a frequent basis but I could always see other racers.

One final slight left and flying by the sculpture park before crossing the road and into the HS parking lot where I completely spaced out needing to unvelcro my shoes and get my feet out to save some time in T2 so I had to do a half-assed run in my cycling shoes (thankfully only a short distance) to my very close bike rack. It was a very quick T2 for me (< 1 minute) I got my socks/shoes on, grabbed my visor and race number and was off.

By this time, the cloud cover that had graced us for the entire bike (most welcome) had vanished and the sun was starting to bake everything it could touch but I felt pretty good and found a pace that was comfortable and just stuck with it. Learning from last week's race, I didn't try and pound a Gu at the run start to keep my stomach from seizing rather I waited until the first aid station before taking some water. Just after mile two, I started seeing the Elites coming in, said hi to my friend Josh (who finished 3rd) when he passed. Not much later, I saw Uli, Brandon and finally Oier coming back, a couple of miles ahead of me on the run. I could see the turn around and was rather happy it had felt like it came so quickly. I soon realized why. The run out was downhill. Very slight, but noticeable after you turned around. Still, it didn't really affect me until close to mile 4 when I started to get hot. The last two miles were a bit of a struggle. I just remember forcing myself to keep running and as we neared the finish to not actually stop.

The finish is a bit cruel (as my sister puts it) as they make you go away from the finish line before going past it all the way back out to the road before swinging around again and following the path to the finishing banner. The highlight of this last 1/2 mile stretch were that no one passed me and I actually managed to pass some one in my age group ON THE RUN! I don't think I've ever done that in a race before my runs have almost always been less than stellar. Finish line in sight and soaking wet, I dug deep, picked up the pace and finished.

The Data:

16/74 AG, 100th overall, 85th male. 715 finishers.

Swim: 26:38 (1:46/100m) - includes 1/4-mile run from beach to T1.
T1: 1:20
Bike: 1:23:18 (21.6 mph)
T2: 0:57
Run: 47:25 (7:38/mile)
Total: 2:39:39

Race Report: 5430 Sprint Triathlon

2010-06-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

This was my first race of the season and the first in what's known as the age group of death: M35-39. This was evidenced by (according to the knowledge imparted upon us by the ever entertaining Barry Siff) the 160+ registrants for this age group, although only 147 started and finished. The waves launched at 7:30 in 5-minute intervals. My age group was so big it occupied multiple waves however I was in the first of the two waves (wave 3) scheduled to start at 7:45.

I went into this race with a sort of relaxed confidence knowing that while I hadn't done nearly all I wanted/needed to do to exert the high effort required for this race, I was still well prepared. I was neither nervous nor did I have the usually half-assed night of sleep the night before going to bed early and sleeping relatively soundly until 3AM or so - much later than when I normally wake up on race nights.

Having packed the night before my morning was stress free and I left the house at my previously selected time of 5:45AM. Getting to the Res was uneventful as was parking or finding a decent racking spot in transition. I laid out my gear and went for a warm-up run around 6:25. Getting back to transition, I double-checked all my gear but probably dallied a little too long and was ultimately, along with may others, ushered out of transition wetsuit, goggles, and swim cap in hand. I took some care in putting on my wetsuit to make sure it was adjusted properly and there would be no tugging, air pockets, or bunches while swimming and took a quick dip for what was probably only a 100m warm-up - far too short for my liking - before I had to line up in my wave a full 15 minutes before my start time. With the series now being owned by Ironman, everything is a process involving lines of some sort so the start was no different. All athletes had to activate their timing chips by going over the timing mat prior to entering the staging area in the water. This meant one could not just warm up until just before race time and simply duck under the ropes to get a good starting position.

I lined up on left which would give me a straight shot to the far turning buoy - had I actually done a halfway decent job of sighting on the way out. I didn't and wound up zig-zagging a bit before finally getting on the right track. Not sure how much time I lost doing this, but my swim split of 12:45 for the 750m indicated I swam a 1:42/100m pace which is somewhat slower than I can rip off in a pool and I was wearing a wetsuit. Lesson learned for the next race: don't forget to sight on the way out. After the first turn, I remembered how to sight correctly and didn't have an issue coming in.

In the last 100m or so I started kicking to wake the legs up. This also has the effect of spiking one's HR and of the three sports in triathlon, swimming has the lowest maximum heart rate meaning it's incredibly easy to red line it if you're not careful. This probably is exacerbated as you stand up at the end of your swim, run through several feet of water and up a couple hundred feet of sand towards transition. You may be able to train for this, but I'm not convinced it ever gets any easier.

Wetsuit came off quickly during the run up and in T1. Everything was smooth save for knocking a water bottle over as I unracked my bike and instead of leaving it, wasted some valuable seconds picking it backup. I say valuable because in a sprint, just like in a short TT or prologue in cycling, the times are (usually) close together and 7 seconds saved would have seen me move up 2 more spots in my age group standings. T1 time was 1:13, not bad, but certainly room for some small improvements.

I had a little trouble at the mount line getting my right cleat in - some more valuable seconds lost - but was soon out on the bike and hammering. One difficulty with the triathlons at the Res is that the bike course is all uphill for at least the first 5 miles. It's not steep, but it's uphill and you can tell. There was some obvious wind on the bike but not enough to make me feel like I was wasting a ton of energy. There were, however, times when I caught myself just cruising rather than pushing the pace - more time lost. I played leap frog with some guys in my age group but all in all, I was probably not passed by more than 6 riders total and not all were in my age group. This was promising.

I came flying back into the Res, pulled my feet from my shoes and had a perfect running dismount losing no momentum and passing several more riders in the process. Bike time: 45:01 for a 22.9mph average. I forgot to unbuckle my helmet while running back to my rack so I wasted some more time having to do it there and struggled a little getting my socks on and square so I could just slip my shoes on and go. I grabbed my race belt, a Gu, and my visor and was off. T2 time: 1:17.

I pounded the Gu immediately and tried to wash it down with water but spilled more than I got in my mouth and had to run tasting chocolate for the first mile until I could get more water. The Gu was a big mistake - not because of the Gu, but rather because of mixing it with my custom Infinit sport drink mix that I consumed on the bike. Stomach cramps dogged me for almost two miles before subsiding into the realm of "ok, this is reasonably bearable." I have no idea what my pace was at the time but I found something that was at the top end of comfortable that also felt. As with the bike leg, not many people in my age group passed me but I never actually considered where this would lead me to place - I just focused on running, keeping my pace and doing my thing. There was a slight headwind going out and while certain, I think it's also VERY slightly up hill. Regardless, at the turn around, the change was noticeable and while I'm not sure if my pace changed, it definitely felt easier. Soon, I was back on the paved road and cruising to the finish. Approaching the corner, a quick glance back told me that no one was going to sneak by me in the last 100m. Running down the finishing chute I was vaguely aware of the race announcer saying my name and something about last year's Ironman. I cross the finish line and glanced at the clock. Race time: 1:23:15 with no real idea on where I placed.

My wife met me at the finish and we milled about the finishing stretch waiting for my sister to finish. I believe she was out on the run within 5 minutes of me finishing.

Finally, the results were posted and I saw what shocked the hell out of me: in my first race in the age group of death, I landed a top-20. I was over the moon. And checking my stats from the last time I did this race in 2008, my time was actually faster...by 11 seconds. But most importantly, the bike was faster by well over a minute and almost 1mph.

Final stats: AG placing: 20/147, 130th overall.

Ok, back to triathlon

2010-05-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

It's not that I've been sitting on my couch every night eating potato chips while watching the Biggest Loser (actually one of my favorite past times...but popcorn or ice cream, not chips) - but it was pointed out to me by a friend this evening at Master's swimming that my blog is not only about triathlon. She mentioned the prior name of my blog "The Triathlon Saga" (only because better versions of that were taken by people who haven't blogged since like 2006 - I mean, seriously, let someone else have it...and while I'm ranting, domain squatting is bad enough, but blog squatting? Come on. Check out http://triathlon.blogspot.com. It's not been touched since 2005 and looks like a 6-year old created it but lost interest after 3 minutes.) and it didn't occur to me at the time that I'd actually changed the title.

So, training. What have I been doing?

After last year's less than stellar Ironman Coeur d'Alene performance and 4 successive years of faster running times, but significantly slower cycling times I'm only doing Olympic distance races and shorter this year. So far, I'm registered for 3 races but hope to pick up one or two more local races in August and September. Training-wise, I dropped my coach after the Ironman and when I started training again last fall, I simply never signed back up. It's not that I didn't think the coaching was good or it was worth what I paid - It's just that I thought for a rebuilding season, I could do it mostly on my own with some slight guidance here and there.

I can tell you without hesitation that it is MUCH harder not having a coach to provide you with a training schedule than to provide you one for yourself. Problem #1? I never actually sat down and mapped out my weekly training schedule. It wouldn't have been hard, I have over 7 years of data from which to glean workouts and a training regimen. It's just that I never made time to sit down and actually do it - which, admittedly was pretty lazy on my part.

So, now I'm training. I'm not winging it, but I don't really have any set workouts save for Master's swimming and then, it's really only the days in which I go swimming, not the actual workout contents. That's reserved for our hairless (he showed us today) German Master's coach, Wolfgang.

I kind of want to see where my races actually go before panicking, but two of them are on back to back weekends and are less than a month away now so there's not a ton I can do at this point to perform magically. I do know my running is not where I want it to be, i.e., it's slower than last year. Not by a huge amount, but it's noticeable. I'd like to think my cycling has improved dramatically but without really any benchmarks other than a TT in which I averaged almost 26mph but still managed to place 31/39 I have no idea where it's really at.

Additionally, when I started running again, I switched to using only the Vibram 5-Fingers for almost 6 months before my distances got too high and I wanted to get some racing flats to give me a little more cushion. So, I don't know if that's got something to do with the slower speed.

All that said, I find it interesting that as I focus more on one sport, the other two lapse noticeably. I'm not talking about going from swimming 1:30/100m to barely making 2:00/100m or running 7:00/miles to not being able to run 8's, but I do find that it's harder to hit those 1:30s without paddles, or to sustain that 7-minute pace for more than a few miles. Also, as I'm doing a lot more speed work, I notice that my body is more fatigued on a day-to-day basis than I can ever recall before.

Monday is the Bolder Boulder. I'm in wave B (the 4th wave, I think) and while I know my running isn't where I want it to be, it will be an interesting test of where I'm at.

Um, Excuse me? What's your motivation?

2010-05-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Given the number of political careers that have been ~~helped~~ ruined by scandalous affairs and the typical answer by politicians to promptly disappear and enter rehab for months so as to avoid talking about it, I figured I'd wade into the debate to offer some of my own insight - especially in the light of the most recent incident (at the time of this writing) with Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN).

Souder, being interviewed by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, in providing some insight as to how depressing it can be to be a public figure and have a story like this break is quoted as saying "...I'm not a suicidal guy for religious reasons..."

To me, this represents a HUGE problem with specific branches of organized religion, but don't worry, I'm not naming names. Here's my rationale:

I would argue that people should do good deeds because it's the right thing do to, not because they expect to be rewarded for it (either now or after they die). Conversely, people shouldn't refrain from doing bad things because they fear not being rewarded (or of being caught for that matter).

Motivation by reward in this particular context strikes me as fairly greedy and selfish. So, does taking Souder's comment at face value imply that were he not religious he would more seriously consider suicide?

My belief is that people shouldn't be slaves to their religion. It's supposed to be a choice (although most people don't act this way) and people should make their religions work for them instead of the other way around. I don't believe religion is supposed to be a pain in the ass. Sure, there's something to say (and gain) for overcoming difficulty, but this doesn't apply here - the man's motivation for not killing himself is because of his religion.

Why server monitoring is imperative for web applications

2010-02-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

We had an issue at work last week whereby we had to kill both our web servers and restart them because we ran out of database connections. To be more specific, we have a database connection pool and the pool filled up because more requests came in than connections were available because database queries weren't completing fast enough.

The solution is NOT to simply add more connections - this can actually exacerbate the problem. Rather, one solution is potentially to decrease the number of connections. This solution can also have the effect of people waiting for connections - namely that lag you see on web pages could be due to a poorly tuned database API.

We are fairly confident, however, at our company that our database API and database itself are tuned appropriately and given we've been using it for years the only thing we might need to concern ourselves with is that our usage may have grown such that we need to take a look at performance tuning our database to account for said added usage.

Today, we were expecting a rather large number of users at a given time so I spent the time during this time watching our server logs, monitoring server statuses, and looking in the database. Also during this time, I used our Cacti monitoring service to follow server health. While looking over the statistics for one of our load-balanced web servers, I came across this amber gem:

The graph spans a 6-week period and that black line is the thread count line for the Tomcat server running on one of our web servers. The sheer cliff on the far right is when we had to kill the servers and restart. To those of you who have done software engineering, this is a leak. We are spawning threads that aren't dying and/or cleaning up properly.

Our current problem is that we only added this monitoring at the beginning of the year so we can't go back and look for the start of the climb to point to a specific code change (or changes) that resulted in this leak. The solution for us, is to start taking thread dumps and comparing them over time to see if threads are hanging around over time or what. Fortunately for us, Java makes this rather easy to do.

Regardless of all this, the bottom line is that if we didn't have server monitoring in place, we might never know about this problem. And given that Cacti is free and open-source software there's not really any excuse no to use it or something similar. If you do decide to use it, consider supporting them.

Zen and the Art of Patience

2009-11-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

Love him or hate him, President Obama can teach you about patience. I cannot recall anything, even going back to the early days of his 2008 presidential campaign where he rushed to judgment or hurried through something in an effort to either appease the masses or to make it look like he was reacting. President Obama picks his battles and he picks them carefully.

Now, I'm not saying that in some cases this lack of reaction isn't a liability or that the careful choosing of battles is not politically motivated - on the contrary, I believe that plays a part. Take for instance two major topics in the news right now: the health care debate and the investigation into the Ft. Hood shootings.

The White House has taken very careful steps to let Congress handle most of the details of the health care debate and one wonders would things be different if, perhaps, it had taken a much larger and more active role. On one hand, the fate of his presidency would be more closely tied to the health care bill and perhaps he learned some lessons in 1992 from then President Clinton. On the other hand, however, it is not the "job" of the White House to craft legislature, the Bush administration notwithstanding. His hands-off approach has returned Congress to it's rightful place in the three branches of government - the capacity to create laws. Whether or not you happen to like that is open for discussion, but it is his choice and were you to ask him, I'm sure he'd mention the previous administration's way of doing things as an example of how NOT to do things.

I also mentioned the Ft. Hood shootings. Certain Senators are clamoring for their own, Congressional, investigation. The White House has asked them to wait until the military, et. al. completes their own investigations. Without proof, I suspect that this is because the White House is fearful of unwarranted retribution and xenophobia from, let's say, the lesser educated. Doubt me? Fine, but I'm betting you can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that ignorant people, just like the rest of us, aren't at some point subject to overreaction. On the flip side, though I've not seen anything yet to indicate this, I suspect that the public is demanding answers. There's nothing inherently wrong with this except that the politicians to whom these people are complaining are compelled to give them answers. And, the problem stems from said politicians giving out either half answers or just plain wrong answers.

So, we then have politicians, under the guise of "doing the right thing," speaking to anyone who will listen about the travesty of not acting fast enough and "we need to protect the troops now." It seems that they have learned nothing about what happens when we rush to judgment from the previous 8 years. It also seems that they care more about seeing themselves on TV or in print, than they do about actually solving the problem at hand.

Why "Quick and Dirty" is bad for software projects

2009-11-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Anyone whose ever worked on a software engineering project has at one point or another either said or done (or both) "let's just implement something quick and dirty for now and we'll fix it later." While I've been living through the nightmare of this statement for the last 2 years at work, it just hit me today as to why this is so bad.

A co-worker just asked me if I knew what the c-rt.tld file was about and why it was only referenced in one JSP page. It struck me almost immediately what that file was and even though I'd seen it before, it never clicked until now. We opened it up and as expected it was a JSTL tag library definition file, in this case, for the core library. Now, we also have a c.tld which also defines the JSTL tag for the core library. Diffing the files yielded that the JSTL versions were slightly off, but that other than ordering, the files were the same. Looking at the SVN history made it all clear.

First, a brief background: in late spring 2006 my company hired a non-American subcontractor to implement a rather large and important piece of functionality for our web application because at the time, we simply didn't have the resources to do it in house. They initially branched our code and went at it while we did our own thing in our existing code branch. According to the check-in comment for this c-rt.tld file, the file was added as a result of the merging of these branches some 6 months (!) later.

My guess as to what happened is this: the developer for this check-in ran into conflicts the likes of which even god has never seen and instead of trying to understand the conflicts and why they were occurring, they just created different versions of the file and "fixed" the references in the @taglib directives in the JSP pages. The result is that instead of only having one TLD for the core JSTL library, we have four(!). Likewise, we have four for the fmt library and three for each of the sql (which you should NEVER use, by the way, and we don't) and xml JSTL libraries.

I realize that this example alone doesn't directly state why "Quick and Dirty" is bad, but consider this: We fired said subcontractor in December 2007 and we've been cleaning up, rewriting, and removing their code ever since. This means that we've been working on fixing issues with their code for longer than they were even contracting for us.

So, the next time someone on your project says "let's just do it the quick and dirty way for now," push back, put your foot down, and say "no." For better effect, replace "no" with "over my dead body." If you're overruled, and this is bound to happen, file a P1/Severe bug against the code fully documenting where in the code the egregiousness lies, why the decision was made to not do it correctly the first time, and the right way to fix it. Trust me, you think you won't forget, but you will - and the bug documentation is all you will have.

Training Again...Sort of

2009-10-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

So, while I've not officially been training, I have been swimming and biking to keep from getting too fat in the off season. It's sort of working.

However, 3 months of no structure is starting to become rather boring and I'm starting to crave actual, structured workouts.

So, with that should come more entries....hopefully.

Summer Updates

2009-08-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

Nothing exciting other than MY RELAY TEAM PLACED 2ND AT THE 5430 Long Course Triathlon!!!! Woo hoo!

I did the swim for my wife's relay team at the Boulder Peak Triathlon in mid/late July and had the fastest relay swim time. Building on that and some major last minute drama in getting a team together I was able to field a team for the last 5430 Long Course triathlon (5430 Sports was sold to the Ironman Corporation). And when I say last minute, I mean I was dropping a check and the racing forms off at Jodee and Barry's house on the Friday night before the race - packet pickup was Saturday morning and the race Sunday.

Out of over 50 teams, I had the 6th fastest relay swim time. Kevin, our biker, had a fantastic ride, and Morgan ran a great half-marathon. We lost to the 1st place co-ed team by over 10 minutes, but their biker was Neal Henderson from the BCSM and their runner was Jimmy Archer, a pro triathlete. So, I think that's very respectable.

I'm not running now to try and let my foot heal a bit but I've been biking 2-3 times/week and swimming 2-3 times/week. I can tell I'm not nearly as fit as I used to be and I'm really antsy for some structure, but it's good to have some down time and it's good practice for me.

How to create a namespaced JavaScript Object/Class

2009-07-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things you can do when creating JavaScript Objects/Classes for reuse throughout your web application or website (or both) is to utilize a namespace that will ensure no pollution occurs when you start to use other JavaScript libraries and APIs. Just like C++ introduced the concept of namespaces and Java introduced the concept of packages, it's good to ensure your code is isolated enough so that it's guaranteed (well, mostly) to work the same no matter which libraries you wind up utilizing.

Creating JavaScript classes isn't hard. It's simply a matter of doing something akin to the following:


function Foo(theBar) {

  this.bar = theBar;

  this.getBar = function() {
    return this.bar;
  }
}

That's pretty much it. You can add additional methods as you see fit. You can now instantiate class Foo and execute getBar() as follows (note that I don't define what the bar parameter is, but it can be anything - here it is an integer):


  var f = new Foo(1);
  alert("bar is: " + f.getBar();

The problem with this is that anyone can add any method to your class by calling and executing:


  // add function
  Foo.prototype.bat = function() {
    alert("new function!");
  }

  // execute function
  var f = new Foo(1);
  f.bat();

This is kind of bad, yes? Namespacing your class makes it harder (and in one case as we'll see below, impossible) for people to do this effectively making your class "final" in that no methods can be added, polluting your class. So, how do we namespaceify our class? Simple. Change the above to the following:


var Foo = function(theBar) {

  return {
    
    method1 : function(message) {
      alert(message);
    },

    method2: function(anotherMessage) {
      alert(anotherMessage);
    }
  };
}();

Now, if someone tries the same 'Foo.prototype.bat = ...', they will get a JavaScript error saying prototype doesn't exist - because it doesn't.

One downside to this is that all the methods defined above are "static" meaning that they can be called via 'Foo.method1()' or 'Foo.method2().' We can add a constructor function to the namespace and while the "outer" class Foo is still immutable to prototype, we cannot prevent methods from being added to instances of the constructor function - however, using a namespace will better protect against namespace pollution. Here's the final example:


var Foo = function(theBar) {

  var privateField;

  function privateFunction() {
    // contents
  }

  return {
    
    method1 : function(message) {
      alert(message);
    },

    method2: function(anotherMessage) {
      alert(anotherMessage);
    },

    // a "constructor" function
    aClass: function(theFoo, theBar) {

      this.foo = theFoo;
      this.bar = theBar;

      this.getFoo = function() {
        return this.foo;
      }

      this.getBar = function() {
        return this.bar;
      }
    }
  };
}();

Notice that we've added a private field and private methods as well as a constructor function with private fields and member methods.

Post Season Drama

2009-07-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, so there's really no drama here. I'm done for the season but that doesn't mean I'm going to let myself go. I still workout at least 4 days a week. It would be nice to get into some type of pattern, but then, that would kind of imply training and I'm definitely not doing that.

So, if I feel like running, I'm going to go for a run. If I feel like swimming, I'll go to Master's swim, and if I feel like riding, I'll ride my road or mountain bike because I'm not touching my tri bike unless absofuckinglutely necessary.

In the Era of the Cell Phone

2009-07-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

I left my keys at work today and I didn't realize it until I was looking in my bag for my wallet and keys about to get off the bus some 30 minutes after I left a locked office for the weekend. Within the next 40 minutes, however, I was at home, my keys were on their way home to me, and I didn't even have to walk home.

After I got off the bus, I called my wife some 10-15 times until I got a hold of her to inquire as to where she was. As she'd not yet left Denver, she was pretty much out for getting a ride home. I then called our friend Ashley who happened to have driven to work that day. After a quick explanation of my situation, she said she could swing by and pick me up on her own way home. I spoke with my wife again who offered to stop by the office and pick up my keys. The problem was that I needed someone in the office to let her in as it was locked and most everyone had already gone home. I wound up getting a hold of Randy, one of our sys admins and all around office god. He brought my keys down to my wife and the crisis was averted.

Now, take out the cell phone and what would have happened? Better yet, what if I weren't married or lived alone? I'd have had to go back to the office to get my keys.

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - Epilogue

2009-06-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

Favorite race day quote (from a woman behind me upon entering an aid station on the run):

"Gatorade! Gels! Oh my god, if I have another gel I'm gonna puke."

Everyone I talk to keeps telling me that I should be proud and happy to have finished. But honestly, there was never a time that I didn't think that I would be able to finish. Even if I had to walk the entire marathon, I was going to finish. I wasn't nervous. I'd been training for 10 months. To me, finishing was an expectation, not a goal - even for my first Ironman. I mean, if I was a weekend warrior or lost 100 lbs in training for this thing and had never done a triathlon before, just finishing is a HUGE accomplishment.

Someone recently pointed out to me that as athletes, we're our own worst critic and I'm sure that's the case here. For me, the hardest part of Ironman was the training. The race itself wasn't THAT difficult. I had some time goal expectations and I missed them all for various reasons. To me, that was the most disappointing thing and why it's hard for me to be happy.

One thing I've noticed is that over the past 2.5 racing seasons, while my run has gotten MUCH better, my cycling has gotten slower. After a lengthy conversation with my coach, we think it's because I've been focusing on the endurance events (halves and Ironman) and not the speed events (sprints and Olypmics). My plan for next year was to only focus on the speed events and this idea was confirmed by our conversation after my coach said the year after his first Ironman, he stuck with the speed events and in his next Ironman in the following year, he was faster.

As far as this guy is concerned, his racing season is over - I need a break. My goal for next year is very simple: get fast.

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - The Run

2009-06-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

The run course, like the bike course, consisted of two laps around several loops: first, a small 0.9-mile out-and-back loop, and then a larger 6-mile-ish loop. The first thing I noticed was that my legs felt great. The second thing I noticed was that my fuel belt was fucking heavy and I remember thinking there's no way I'm going to carry this thing for the whole marathon. I was thinking about how to go about losing it when on the way out the small loop, I passed by the special needs station for the run and I figured I could just throw it in there on the way back, which I did. After losing the 2+ lb weight belt, I started moving. My pace for the first mile was 7:41 and I was like, "whoa adam, slow down there" so I backed off a bit and just ran. My pace was good and I was passing tons of people. At mile 6, I had to go again and this time I made damn sure I got everything out before leaving the port-a-potty so I'd not have to go again. After another 5-minute stop, I was on my way again, feeling great, and knowing full well that my entire nutrition plan went out the window. I ran through aid stations taking sips of water and cola and trying to get down some Cliff Bloks, but at that point, I couldn't eat anything. The hill on the large loop at the turn-around sucked not because it was steep, but because it banked severely to the right going up. Almost at the top, I saw Glenn coming down for his finishing stretch and gave him some props. He said hi and honestly looked like he was just out for a Sunday stroll he was so relaxed. He wound up doing a 9:45 or so and placing 2nd in his age group. The run back into town kind of sucked because most of it was this gradual up hill. About a mile or two from town, it started raining, nothing hard, just a light sprinkle - but the temperature started dropping. I came back through the expo area on lap two heading towards the short loop turn-around and passed my sister coming the other direction. She gave me props and I don't recall if I said anything. I hope I did.

A couple miles out I ran into Kerrie coming in for the finish. She looked like shit. I mean, she looked absolutely miserable and like she was trying to pass a watermelon but still run the 7:07/mi pace she averaged for her marathon leg. I moved to my left and we gave each other a waist-high five as we passed. I told her "way to gut it out." She won her age group running up from 7th place after the bike.

My run out on my second lap just plain sucked. When I passed under the bridge by the Coeur d'Alene Resort's golf club about 3-4 miles out I grabbed a thermal parka from a volunteer passing them out. It was raining and 50 degrees and I could see my breath at times. I walked/ran to the turn around and continued a walk/jog combination for a little while longer. At some point on the way back, I just started running and didn't stop. With the thermal parka on, my clothes were getting dry and the rain had finally let up but it was still cold so I kept the parka until I had about 3 miles left and not wanting to finish with it ditched it with a volunteer who seemed rather surprised that I was giving it up. I was motivated at this point and I was flying - or at least it felt like it. I kept passing people saying "come one guys, only 2 miles left!" One response I got from a guy from either Spain or Central/South America: "yes, but I am so tired." I came up on the split where finishers go left and runners heading to lap 2 stay right and I remember feeling so good to stay left and seeing the "to finish" painted on the ground. A left turn, a slight downhill, a right turn, a slight uphill and a left turn had me seeing the finish line a scant half mile away. Sherman Ave. was still rocking despite the weather and it was still very much daylight so I could see everyone in front of me seeming to simply just jog towards the finish but I wasn't having any of that I picked up my pace even more and rocked it to the finish. Gritting my teeth and giving a fist pump ensured two things: 1) that my finishing photo looks really funny, and 2) that I completely missed Mike Reilly announcing my name (if he did) or what he was even saying. Run time 4:52:34 for an average pace of 11:10/mi.

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - The Bike

2009-06-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

The bike course is two times around what I can only describe as a 3-loop course. The first loop is an out-and-back course around 14 miles and change in total distance. The middle loop (which I will refer to as the big loop) is the monster - a 40-mile pseudo out-and-back (there are sections on the way back that differ, sometimes significantly, from the way out), technical course with a large amount of climbing and a ton of turns. The third and final loop (to which I won't really refer to at all) is a 1-mile out-and-back stint that feels like it was added simply to get the distance right at 56 miles per course iteration.

My bike started out well enough. I felt good and fast even with the wind and slight hills. People were passing me, but I was consciously focusing on keeping my heart rate from going through the roof. It was already high from coming out of transition and my goal was to get it back down as soon as possible. The long, gradual downhill going out on the first loop allowed this to happen. The bike wasn't very exciting in general. It's 112 miles. That's a lot of time to just ride and think about anything and nothing. I'm pretty sure I got bored at some point and just wanted it to be over. The hills were fine on the first lap and I stuck to my nutrition plan almost perfectly. Just like in training, it was damn near impossible to get any solid food down which makes it very good that most of my calories were liquid. My coach, who uses Infinit as well, said that there was enough water in the bottle when I asked him if I needed to supplement my drink with plain water. Infinit is just a powdered mix that one mixes with water.

My only real complaint about the bike is that people were blatantly drafting and I never saw any penalties given out or in the results. I understand it's hard to not draft when there's a pack of 8 riders all together, but it seems like there could be some better enforcement here because of a lack of spacing out. One might argue that at the beginning of the bike everyone is clustered together so it's almost impossible to space out, but I'm not talking about the beginning of the bike, I'm talking about mile 40 and beyond. My coach said that this may be what eventually drives him from the sport. It's almost impossible to be competitive at those distances when you're the only one following the rules.

I came in for the end of the first set of loops and went out on the second stopping at mile 61 to get my special needs bag - a new set of bottles and two more energy bars which wound up going uneaten. The hills on the second lap were a lot harder but I suffered through them fine. My average speed didn't drop very much between the laps which meant I was being consistent - a good thing in an Ironman. At mile 75 on the way out, I finally saw my sister and she didn't look happy. I did some math in my head and figured that I was well over 20 miles ahead of her and remember thinking "oh my god, what happened?" It turns out, her rear derailleur cable broke at mile 4 on the bike and due to a mixup in communication they sent a sag wagon instead of the support vehicle so she wound up waiting an hour before being able to get back on the roads. I wouldn't see her again until I was over halfway done on the run. At mile 81, the gastro-intestinal problems started and while I'd had to stop for a quick 0:30 pee earlier, this was a 5-minute bowel expulsion - as gross as that sounds. However, after getting back on the bike, I felt great and was able to pick up the pace a bit and made good time coming back into town and T2. Bike time: 6:24:38, a full 24 minutes slower than I was hoping for and even given the potty stops, I wouldn't have hit it. I have to look at the data to see what happened.

My dismount was good and I left the shoes in the pedals rolling right up to the dismount line which looked like it was being manned by a group of volunteers playing red rover as they were lined up side by side across the dismount line. I remember yelling, "I got it, I got it." hopping off in perfect time and running with my bike a few steps before a volunteer said "here, let me take that." I forgot that in Ironman, you don't have to do a lot of stuff you normally have to do in the shorter events. I grabbed my run bag and headed into the changing tent. Finding an open seat towards the exit (everyone tends to cluster towards the entrance) I sat down and the volunteer following me asked me if he could just dump my stuff out on the ground. I said yes and he did so going through the stuff that had fallen out and putting stuff he didn't think necessary back in the bag. One such item was my bottle of sunscreen. By that time it was fully overcast but not yet raining. The wind at this point was moot because it wouldn't make much of a difference for me on the run. Changing shorts, donning my visor, putting on my fuel belt and spare race number (the one I wore during the bike came off due to some clumsy hands - mine), I headed out of the changing tent and got about 10 steps when I had to go again. Fortunately there were vacant port-a-potties right there in T2, but unfortunately, I was in there for probably 5 more minutes hence the rather slow 8-minute T2 time. After I did my thing, I headed out of T2 and on the run.

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - The Swim

2009-06-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

I was only able to get in a few minute swim before the kayakers started kicking the swimmers out of the water and making them head towards shore. I felt much warmer than when swimming the week before - it felt like the water was warmer. I wound up standing in about knee to waist deep water on the far right of the beach - this gave me a straight line shot to the turning buoy as the rectangular loop slanted out and towards the right.

The filming helicopter was right overhead so no one around me could hear anything coming over the PA system. BANG!!!! The gun went off and none of us were ready for it and we all charged out into the water. The first thing I noticed very quickly was that the water was pretty rough. VERY rough. There were white caps and pretty large swells that if I had to guess were well over a foot high. It made swimming interesting as there is a very distinct up and down motion when going in and out of the swells. I recall sighting 2-4 strokes in a row and seeing only water and sky. No marker buoys, no swimmers, no kayaks. On that first leg, actually, I don't recall sighting on an actual buoy until the last one before the left turn.

As usual, the turns were a disaster. Swimmers piled high and in a very tight cluster. This causes the pace to slow considerably just like in a traffic jam. Making the next left turn back towards shore and the second lap, I had to stop swimming for a second and the guy next to me did the same and I recall saying "good god: to which he replied, "no kidding." I have to believe that if there were a way for one to be in a washing machine during a wash cycle, this is what it would be like. The swim back in was much nicer as we had the wind and waves at our back though it occasionally gave the sensation that I wasn't actually moving and upon getting closer to shore and seeing the bottom this illusion proved more than just a feeling. I would take a stroke and the lake bottom wouldn't move beneath me. I suspect it was just an optical illusion but it really did feel like I wasn't making an progress.

Of course with everything going on between the ton of swimmers and the rough water I totally forgot about my form. Which simply means that it was shit and I need to work on it such that it's engrained and natural - that I don't have to think about it. On the second lap, the last section, the last leg if you will back to the beach and T1, I finally felt like I was able to get into a rhythm and started flying by people. But, by that point, it was too late to really get a decent time. Don't get me wrong, a 1:09:02 is decent at a 1:49/100m, but I was shooting for and am capable of doing a sub-hour swim.

My swim run out was good and I got my wetsuit top off quickly. I waited to take the bottom off and did it in the change tent. My one oops here was that I ran the wrong way but was quickly pointed in the right direction to pick up my transition bag and into the tent. I changed fairly quickly taking time to wipe off my feet and face and catch my breath. One mistake I made here was that I put my bike shoes on before I put my compression socks (calves only). I should have put them on under my wetsuit but by the time I realized that, I'd already had my wetsuit on and it was too late. So, I had to take my shoes off and then on again. I ran out straight to my bike but since there were so many of us, my bike wasn't waiting for me with a volunteer and I had to get it directly. The racks were too short for the bike to fit underneath it with my bottles in the cages behind the seat so I had some trouble getting it out and had to turn the bike sideways spilling some of my aero bottle drink in the process. I ran out the the mount line and angling off to the side so I wasn't in the way, hopped on and away I went.

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - Race Morning

2009-06-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

We went to bed fairly early and I expected to get only a small amount of sleep. On that note, what amazes me even more about people who do Ironman races is that unless the person doing them isn't nervous or anxious at all, they're done on a ridiculously small amount of sleep. I don't recall when exactly I fell asleep, but I awoke around 1:30 knowing that I'd not get any consistent amount of sleep after that.

I don't recall tossing and turning for the next 3 hours (the alarm was set for 4:30) but I do recall waking up every so often and checking the time. I got out of bed at 4:29 before the alarm went off.

Not to be disgusting, but I had my normal morning BM and then went downstairs to choke down my normal pre-race breakfast for 70.3's and higher: whole wheat bagel with peanut butter and honey, a bottle of Ensure, and instead of water I drank my Infinit endurance drink mix for some extra calories. After breakfast, in what should have given me a warning of things to come, my second BM came rather quickly - it usually doesn't it until on the race site and I have to stand in line for the port-a-potties, which are by then, usually quite nasty. Instead of a normal BM, I had mild diarrhea.

Not thinking anything of it, I got my race gear on, and the rest of my bags together and went downstairs and soon thereafter, we were off to the race start.

I was in a very good mood and I was confident. I wasn't nervous at all and was joking around with the family even posing for pictures in my wetsuit - pictures which I'll spare you from having to view, however, my little sister has already posted them on Facebook.

The pros had already gone off by the time I was in my wetsuit and it took forever to make it to the break in the wall to get down to the beach. I went on ahead and wound up missing being able to get a good-luck kiss from my wife and to tell her I'd see her out on the bike.

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - Prologue

2009-06-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm going to break the report up into multiple posts because while I've not written anything yet, I assume I'll have a lot to write and if it turns out I don't, at least I get to pad my total number of blog entries. (He who dies with the most blog posts wins)

We last left our hero lamenting about the ever changing weather reports last Thursday. Friday, I went for an early morning ride as I didn't do anything on Thursday. Later that morning, we headed back down to the expo on a quest for a rain jacket for my sister who found something that probably wouldn't have sufficed had she wound up wearing it anyway - and she might have, but given her attire as she came across the finish line, it didn't matter. I digress.

We made some small errands before returning to #235 to rest and start preparing our bike and run transition bags. The mandatory athlete meeting started at 7:30 so we headed out for our obligatory pre-race burrito dinner around 6 thinking it would be plenty of time however, the restaurant we found was packed and so we settled for Qdoba and headed straight for the meeting. It turns out the meeting wasn't at the same location as the expo, but rather about a half mile past on the other side of the host hotel, the Coeur d'Alene resort (where for a cool $350/night, you too, could have the privelige of sleeping mere yards from all the action).

We arrived at the banquet tent at 7:15 to find that not only was the athlete dinner completely over (which was fine, we didn't plan on eating there anyway), but they'd already started the meeting and were essentially done with the explanation of the bike segment. After finding a seat mid-tent, I asked the guy next to me when they started and he replied they'd started early, around 7. Needless to say I was little peeved because as anyone who does triathlons knows, the odds of getting a penalty on anything other than the bike or bike related infractions are pretty damn small. I didn't get any penalties, but what's the point of having a schedule and passing it out to all the athletes if you don't follow it?

After the meeting, we returned back to #235 and finished packing our transition bags. I wound up getting to bed a little later than I would have liked, but I don't think it caused too much of a problem.

Saturday morning, we awoke and and eventually made it down to the expo to drop off our bikes and transition bags. After doing so we left to return to #235 to relax for the rest of the day. A mid-afternoon movie with the family that had arrived around noon helped us stay off our feet. We had dinner after a late afternoon nap and went to bed early to get ready for race day.

The Weather

2009-06-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

I check the weather for Sunday at least several times a day and as of now, 8:22pm on Thursday, it's calling for a high of 63 degrees and a 30% chance of rain.

I've seen the temperature as high as 67, but since the % chance of rain is on a different page, I don't check it as often.

We'll see what happens, but I'll take cooler weather over hot any day of the week.

The Bike/Run Course

2009-06-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

Today, we went to pick up our race packets and all the other crap they give out at these races: coupons to local/national retailers, cards for other races, cards for bikes, cards for sponsors, sample packets of various liquids and food (although, this time, there was no food in our packet - perhaps Ironman's sponsorship fees are a tad too high for some of the big athlete food providers).

While I meandered in the expo, my sister went for a swim. We met up later, and after some quick shopping by her, we went back to #235 for a late lunch.

After lunch we drove the course. The small loop of the bike and the run loop were very similar past a certain point, so we drove the run course out and bike course back. The run course is a little hilly for the first few miles but we do get a long downhill back to the start of the 2nd loop and the finish. As I'd already ridden the small loop of the bike, there were no surprises. Those came on the big loop of the bike course.

After several miles of gently sloping uphills and false flats heading North away from CDA, the mother-lode of hills kicked in and all I can say is OH MY FREAKING GOD there's a lot of hills. I don't know how many miles they cover, but shit, I am officially concerned. I'm not worried about the first bike loop. The second, however, is going to suck...badly. I can honestly say that I am actually looking forward to the run because it means that I'll be done with the bike and seeing how my run has improved enormously over the last season and a half (and even more so this season) it should be the easier of the two for me. This means I REALLY need to stay focused on my heart rate on the bike and save the legs not only for the run, but for the second lap of the bike.

This will probably prove to be the hardest part as I tend to completely zone out and I really need to make sure I'm drinking and eating on schedule.

Wednesday

2009-06-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

With the past two days taking its toll, I slept in late missing a chance to go swim in the morning before having to go pick up my sister from the airport in Spokane - about 35 minutes West of CDA. But after we returned to #235 for some lunch and some time to let the food digest, I went for a swim sans sister.

Last year, the water was apparently ridiculously cold. This year, it's still cold. I asked a lifeguard and 61 degrees was his reply. It took me probably over 10 minutes to warm up. To make matters worse, the wind was pretty strong giving the North end of the lake where I was some pretty serious chop. I battled through the cold, green water and got in a good swim workout. I now know that I should do at least a 10-minute warmup prior to the race start. Complicating that may be the fact that the pros go off some 35 minutes ahead of us amateurs ensuring that many of us will never actually see them on the course - at least, the ones who will win anyway. I'm hoping they let us in the water after the pros start.

After returning to #235, my sister and I go for a run downtown on the bike path (2 miles from #235) where she tests the water temperature before we return home.

The First Ride

2009-06-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

After I was reasonably unpacked and the cart with the broken and flat wheels returned to its den in the parking garage, I dressed for a bike ride. #235 is in a complex called Riverstone and is conveniently close to a bike path that, conveniently, goes straight downtown. I followed the path downtown and wound up, quite by accident, following the small loop of the bike course. It essentially heads straight East through town and turns South/Southeast on to some road that essentially follows the river shoreline. 6 miles down, I run into the hill that is the run turnaround (but since the run loop is run twice, I get to run this hill twice). Unfortunately, for the bike, we continue down the other side of the hill for another 1.5 miles or so and turn around in a parking lot where the road dead ends. The journey back involves the same hill in the opposite direction and I realize that since the bike loop is done twice, I get to do this hill, in all its glory, twice. Fine, I can live with that. I ride back through downtown getting lost several times before heading home to deal with this magical squeaking sound that's been happening since I left #235.

Lucky for me there's a new bike shop downstairs from #235 and I explained my problem to one staff member. He came outside with me and had me ride by him. He heard it, although it was faint. Hopping off the bike, in about 30 seconds, he figured out it was the cap from the pump rubbing against my crank arm. A quick twist and voila, it was fixed.

The Condo

2009-06-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

Following the directions to the resort management office, I went in and picked up the keys to our condo rental for the week. The condo, #235, is gorgeous. It's brand new and I'm almost certain we're the first tenants to rent it out from the owners. It's deep and narrow like a DC row house, but it's brand new and not from 1911. I'd give approximate measurements but given how badly I screwed up the wind turbine blades, I'll refrain from embarrassing myself again.

I emptied the Jeep in segments, first carrying everything to the elevator lobby. Then loading up the cart with the broken and flat tires into the elevator (much harder than it should have been) along with the two bikes (mine and my sister's) and the rest of the bags that didn't fit on the cart. The elevator freaked out and started screaming at me. It must have thought someone was stuck in the door because when they finally started closing, it took forever. Arriving at the second floor, I tried to empty the elevator as fast as possible to avoid it screaming at me again and while I was successful, the cart with the broken and flat tires tried very hard to remain on the elevator with all my stuff. After a bloody battle in which no lives were actually lost, I won and the cart begrudgingly allowed itself to be wheeled down the hall to unit #235 where we were going to be staying.

Dragging everything inside and to its appropriate location (as determined by me), I returned the cart with the broken and flat tires to its lair in the parking garage knowing that we would meet again in a final battle of sorts come next Tuesday when we pack up and leave.

Colorado...Wyoming...Montana...Idaho!

2009-06-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

While the training portion of my Ironman CDA experience began 10 months ago and culminates this coming Sunday with the actual event (hooray!), the road trip there began Monday around 9am as I chose to drive, splitting the 1000+ mile journey over two days to avoid my normal, little I, "ironman" driving routine in which I drive for 12-15 hours before stopping for the night (but not gas or potty breaks).

Traffic was somewhat heaving heading North on I-25 towards and beyond Ft. Collins. At some point, however, and I don't recall exactly where, the traffic just disappeared and it was just me and the open road (and the very hard/uncomfortable seat in our Jeep Liberty). Sometimes the miles flew by and I eerily "came to" wondering how many close calls I had while zoning out. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's had this happen to them, but it is kind of freaky how we can just drive on autopilot and actually stay on the road while our mind wanders off into La La Land. And sometimes the miles dragged on. One thing is for sure, after I passed I-80, I was on roads that I've never driven on before - or even been on as far as I know. So, the scenery, and there was a lot of it, was all new. Wyoming on I-25 all the way north to Montana is very rolly and very beautiful. With all the rain the front range has had this year, everything is just green....which means bugs....lots of them....impaling their little bodies against my windshield. Some white, some clear with baby eggs that will never hatch, and some, quite grossly, red.

All through Wyoming and Montana, I kept seeing huge flatbed semis passing in the opposite direction each carrying two wind turbine blades. Last Thanksgiving, we drove back to CO from Dallas via US-287 which passes through Excel Energy's wind farm in the Southeast corner of CO. Those things were huge and when we passed by a maintenance shed where several of the blades were on the ground, they were still huge and I (very wrongly) estimated that they were like 40 feet long. The length of the flatbed semi trailer is 120 feet. These turbine blades were hanging off the trailer on both ends. They were absolutely enormous. 40 feet? Are you kidding me?

Billings, MT is about halfway between CDA and Boulder being just short of the mark. After having a rather long time to think about how long it was going to take to get into Coeur d'Alene on Tuesday and the fact that I still wanted to do a ride on Tuesday, I came very close to hitting the low end of my little I, ironman driving hour range as I pulled in to Bozeman, MT a full 150mi beyond halfway and slightly before 8pm ensuring that I would not have a ridiculously long driving day on Tuesday. That said, I rolled into CDA around 1pm having gained an hour due to driving so fast I went back in time. Actually, Northern Idaho is in the Pacific Time Zone. The highlight of day 2 was having to schlep everything but the food from the Jeep to the hotel room and back again in the morning where someone found it fit to park in the middle of the roundabout leading into where the front desk was and also my loading door. The car, a red Nissan Sentra sedan effectively blocked any traffic from getting through the roundabout so I had to back in in order to load effectively. The car was parked there the entire time it took me to repack and load the Jeep and as I was finishing up, this old couple came out to claim their car. I almost said something but decided it wasn't worth it. Besides, she was using a walker.

The Nutrition Dilemma

2009-06-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

The purpose of a fuel test is to determine how many calories one's body burns from fat and carbohydrates (carbs/CHO). Essentially, you want to burn as many calories from fat as possible for as long as possible because you don't have to replace these calories while training. The more intense a workout is, the less energy your body gets from burning fat calories and the more it gets from burning carbs.

As an aside, any decent weight loss plan would include a fuel test to inform the participant how many calories from fat and carbs they burn at different levels of intensitites and focus on the levels of intensitites that burn the most amount of calories from fat. This, supplemented with a good diet, is arguably the best way to lose weight.

Now, as any triathlete will tell you, their goal is not really to lose weight. That comes naturally, especially if you're training for half or full Ironman events. Most of the time, I don't care or watch what I eat since I'm burning so many calories. But this doesn't mean that race day nutrition goes out the window. For sprint and olypmic distance triathlons, my normal breakfast of cereal will suffice though I will usually add a few more calories for an olympic-distance.

For longer distance triathlons I'm very type A and for halves, I've got my nutrition dialed in perfectly. As this is my first full Ironman, I've broken out the spreadsheet. Assuming an initial 1800 kCal in the bank and assuming 1 24oz. bottle of my cycling Infinit drink mix per hour on the bike and 2 8oz flasks of my running Infinit drink mix, and taking into consideration the kCal burned from CHO on the swim, bike, and run, I'm about 1800 kCal in the hole. This means between the bike and the run I need to consume an additional 1800 kCal.

I'm not sure how fine the line is between consuming too many calories and not enough. I've been on the losing end of that battle and it's not fun. That said, too many calories, I've been told, can result in bloating. I've never actually been bloated in a race, but it doesn't sound like fun.

After consulting with my coach (and I still have a question outstanding), my current plan is to have one PowerBar TT (which tastes lightyears better than the original PowerBar) every 90 minutes on the bike and a Cliff Blok every mile on the run. These extra calories put me at only ~115 kCal in the hole. Not much else I think I can do here and honestly, I'm not too worried.

A Solid Week

2009-06-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Last weekend's ride and run were fantastic. The ride was just solid and the run smooth and steady. I did the run with a master's swimming buddy and honestly, I'd forgotten what it's like to train with someone else. It makes the time go by MUCH faster and you don't have time to think about quitting, or focus on some tiny pain that you wonder if it will become larger and make you stop.

The swimming incorporated some really fast interval sets including an 800m TT followed by 6x200m and a 4x600m, on different days and the body felt good. My swim speed has risen a bit from a month or so ago when I could easily do sub-1:30s consistently. Now, it's a struggle to consistently do 1:35's. However, in yesterday's master's swim class I was able to turn in several sub 3:00 200's. I think it might have been due to my focusing on my stroke finish, i.e., where the hand passes the side of the quad. I think my stroke is normally shorter because I pull my arm out too soon. Leaving my arm in the water a little longer to finish my stroke, allows me more glide time and it's also the strongest part of the stroke.

I'm hesitant to really focus on it during the Ironman swim because since I just started, there's a good chance it'll get sore and I'm not sure what that will do to my shoulders/upper arms for 112 miles in an aero position (yes, I'm aware that I'd not actually be IN the aero position for the full 112 miles).

Tapering...Sort of

2009-06-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

It's definitely less volume than I've been doing previously but it really doesn't feel like a traditional taper. My coach says "when in doubt, leave it out." However, I've not really missed any workouts yet. I will after tomorrow but I'm adding my last pre-Ironman massage.

People keep asking me how I feel and I tell them, truthfully, it depends on the day. Last night, after master's swim, I was totally amped. Right now, after a run and splashing around in the pool for 30 minutes, I'm tired.

I guess I just want to get up there, check out the course and just chill.

T-minus Two Weeks

2009-06-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow marks two weeks until Ironman CDA and while I've officially started my taper, the long ride/run on the weekends are coming down a little slower than I was expecting. I suspect this is where my coach's comment "when in doubt, leave it out" comes in to play.

I'm the type of person who absolutely *hates* to miss workouts and while I know my body and will bag a run if I'm just not feeling it, I just don't miss workouts. This probably accounts for my sporadic fatigue on the weekends and sometimes shitty long workouts. After explaining my training program to friends (also triathletes), I get interesting feedback mostly lead by "holy shits" due to the long volume.

This, unfortunately makes me second guess my training regimen. At this point, however, it doesn't really matter since I'm only training for another two weeks and am then taking some much needed time off.

Iterating over JSON data

2009-06-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

JSON is pretty powerful when working in web pages because as a hash, it gives you all the benefits of say, a C struct (namely grouping [unrelated] data, but you can declare it on the fly and you can add/remove to/from it on the fly.

Let's say I have the following Javascript JSON object (I used strings as the values but they could be anything: objects, functions, etc...):

var f = {foo: 'bar1',
        bar: 'bat1',
        bat: 'baz1'};

The call f.foo would return the string 'bar1' (sans quotes).

But, what if you have a JSON object and you want to iterate over all the values, but you don't know all the keys? The following will generate an alert box for each key/value pair but the alert is simply used to show the results and any type of processing could be done instead:

for (item in f) {
 alert(item + ', ' + f[item]);
}

NB: Two major caveats:

Because of namespace pollution by, shall we say, less than kosher JavaScript APIs, you can get whamboozled here through JavaScript's allowance of the prototype operator in that items can be magically added to your hash without your knowledge.

While this is a bug (not a flaw as some websites state) in JavaScript, the onus is on the developer to ensure they don't pollute the namespace with their code. jQuery is very good about this by ensuring that everything is encapsulated so no pollution occurs.
As it is a hash, we are NOT guaranteed the order over which items will be iterated. This can easily be mitigated by using an array to store the keys separately and then iterate over the array to get the correct order. It should be noted that in this case, we can retrieve the length of the hash via the lenth field on the array and thus, don't need the for-in loop.

Fortunately, the fix for this is simple. We simply change the above block to:

for (item in f) {
 if (f.hasOwnProperty(item)) {
   alert(item + ', ' + f[item]);
 }
}

This ensures that we only read items that we placed in the hash - we, unfortunately, still iterate over items that are not ours.

Bolder Boulder - One Day Later

2009-05-26T18:47:00.001-07:00

Today was a very nicely appreciated day off to let the legs recover from yesterday's 18-mile run. While they felt fine yesterday, today the legs are a little sore and a little more sore than I would have expected. However, tomorrow's lunchtime bike ride and early afternoon massage should fix that right up. I've found the best cure for sore muscles isn't a hot tub (though it feels fantastic) or a massage (ditto), or an ice bath (uh, not ditto), or Advil (but it does help), but actually an easy workout on the bike (for legs) and an easy swim in the pool (for arms). Nothing hard at all, all Z1, maybe Z2, just get the HR up and blood flowing through the muscles. And follow it up with a good stretch.

We'll see if I have anything left after tomorrow's ride and massage to go swimming afterward.

3 Miles, 6 Miles, 9 Miles

2009-05-26T18:27:00.002-07:00

No, it's not a geometric progression, it's my workout from yesterday:

3-mile warm-up for the Bolder Boulder.
6.2 miles for the Bolder Boulder.
9-mile run home.

The race was great though I missed my time goal. This was mostly due to my not doing my math homework ahead of time to determine exactly what pace I needed to hold to make my time goal. As a result, and as you might expect, I missed my time goal.

What was my time goal? I'd hoped to break 43:00. Actual chip time: 43:48.29. A full 16 seconds faster than my previous 10K time done at the Canine Classic 10K just weeks ago. Mile breakdown is as follows: 6:54.51, 7:06.74, 7:14.62, 7:02.44, 6:51.08, 7:08.24.

I started way too fast and saw my 1/2 mile split and slowed down. It's hard because the course is downhill for the first 3/4 mile. But, it's not a race to the first mile marker and once we all settled in I started passing a bunch of people. Because I qualified for the B wave I'd thought things would be better than racing in the C wave a few years ago in which I spent the bulk of the time weaving in and out of people and darting through gaps where I could find them, but it turns out the same thing happened, only to a lesser degree. There's always people who go out way too hard and you have to go around them because they've blown a gasket. It's particularly bad in the corners where everyone seems to move in to the apex and slow down. It's very frustrating actually. I was told by a friend, it's not much better in the A wave though I'd think that the faster you run, the less people with whom you have to deal.

But still, I can't be too disappointed. it's still a new PR and considering I've been doing Ironman training for the last 7 months the fast twitch muscle fibers are working pretty well. As I only plan on doing Olympic distance or shorter next year, I'm very curious and excited as to just how fast I can become.

After the race, we gathered in our usual section (work employees) where I chilled (literally, it was getting cold) for a bit before deciding that it was time to leave. Finding my sister, we walked back to the car, got ready for the long run home and headed out. I wasn't feeling great for those first 1.5 miles, but after a short stop at her boyfriend's apartment for her fuel belt, I was feeling good. The legs felt great and I was moving. I suspect it was the caffeine from my sports drink, but I didn't care. The run itself went by really fast and I can only hope this will be the case in my Ironman. The last mile was all uphill as I made my way from Baseline over to South Boulder Road via several open space areas on a bike path and what I can only describe as Louisville's version of L'Alpe D'Huez complete with a ridiculous number of switchbacks including some connecting segments that are so short you literally take one step before having to do a 180 to continue on the path.

I don't even remember my time and haven't yet downloaded my HR data but will do so soon.

More laziness

2009-05-26T18:27:00.001-07:00

Sigh...back to the blog.

Whoops!

2009-05-20T12:26:00.001-07:00

Must have fallen asleep for a week there. Yikes.

Holy Cow!

2009-05-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday's 14-mile ride was the first where my wife rode next to me on her bike while I ran. It was also the first time I had to deal with several ornery cows. They may be cute and funny, but they are NOT friendly. On the way out, one made my wife and I traverse around the path a bit dodging cow pies to avoid getting too close. On the way back, no less than 5 bulls were hot footing toward the path on an intercept course before changing direction when they hit the path and trotting away. It was, by far, the most nerve-wracking moment I've experienced while training.

A Recovery Week - Yay!

2009-05-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hooray for off weeks! I feel absolutely AWESOME. My total volume for this week is just ridiculously low compared to my on weeks. It's a fantastic chance to recover, heal, and see about fitting in a massage at some point.

So far, it's working great. I feel great and am having great workouts when I have them. In today's Master's swim class I felt absolutely awesome. And then I got totally schooled by some VERY good triathletes in my lane. Our intervals were on around 1:26-28/100m and while I was able to hold the intervals, I was NOT able to maintain contact with the others who were easily swimming sub 1:20s. As crappy as that is, I know I'm getting stronger and if you had told me in 2006 after I moved here that I'd be consistently swimming in the 1:20s I would have asked to take a toke of whatever you were smoking. But here I am, 3 years later and 40-50 seconds faster.

The only keys that currently come to mind are patience and to not be afraid to move up or down a lane to test the waters or when you need a recovery swim.

Weekend Workouts

2009-05-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday saw a cold and rainy day in Colorado and along the front range. Originally having been slated to do a 120-mile ride, after having a come-to-Jesus meeting with my coach we will be reducing my bike mileage and increasing my running. That said, my 120-mile ride was reduced to first 3 hours and then 4 but since it was raining, I did 3 hours on the trainer and then a 2-mile run on the treadmill.

Sunday, I did a 12-mile run outside (the weather was MUCH nicer) and it was a really good run. I started to fatigue around mile 8/9, but gutted it out and was able to maintain a good pace for the entire middle set.

For the week, I wound up running a whopping 42 miles! Yay! And the legs felt good. 6.5 weeks until race day and I think I'm on a good track. Caught the problem early enough.

A Rather Decent Week

2009-05-01T19:28:00.001-07:00

For all the running I've done this week, the legs feel like they're in good shape and the intervals I had to run on Tuesday and Thursday turned out pretty decent. I'm fatigued, but it doesn't seem like I'm as fatigued as I've been in the past.

On that note, after Master's on Wednesday I had a good chat with Laura (Billy William's fiance) and Kerrie/Glenn all of whom think that my training regimen has way too much volume. So I had a long chat with my coach about scaling back the cycling and upping the running here in the last month or so before my taper so as to get my running to a decent state because I feel like it's really been crap up to this point. I've not yet been able to complete a long brick - well I did one, probably 50/11 but that was so long ago. My legs shouldn't be so shot after a ride that I can't do at least some running.

So, we changed my long ride and long runs and it will be really interesting to see how it pans out in this last month or so. I'm not worred about the swim at all. I'm only slightly worried about the bike - to the extent that I need to make sure I take in enough calories and stay in Z3. My big fear is the run. With no bike, I'm not worried that I couldn't do a nice long run - but with the bike, everything changes....have to be smart and have to be prepared.

F*#king Wind

2009-04-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

Today's long brick was to be 68/16. Considering the race yesterday, the legs felt really good. I rode out to Carter Lake with my sister who turned around about a mile West of County Rd. 23 while I wanted to see just how full the reservoir was so I rode to the top of the dam with the expectation that I'd catch up to her somewhere on the way back to Boulder. While there was a headwind going back, it wasn't so bad as to make my 22 mile Z3 interval terrible. The problem started around Nelson and 75th when the wind (headwind, of course) picked up to about 30 mph with nasty gusts to probably 50mph.

It's not a long stretch of road from the afore mentioned intersection to Westbound Niwot Rd and 73rd but after that long of an interval it was awful and at some point, my legs became shot. Luckily I was done with the interval and had a nice cruise back to the gym, but the damage was done. I had nothing left for the run and couldn't even eek out 3 miles. A very bad omen for an Ironman.

Race Report - Canine Classic 10K 2009

2009-04-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

I went to bed a little later than I should have because I was watching a movie on HBO and it's usually really hard for me to stop watching a movie halfway through. I'd not even bothered turning on the TV but I was verifying the start time of my race and realized that I was off by well over an hour. The 7:25am I saw was when registration opened, not when my race started - it started at 9am. So, I figured I had more time.

Then, this morning, for whatever reason I kept thinking that it started at 9:30 and was planning my warm-up, stretching, and post warm-up BM but then realized on the way to the reservoir, I was wrong in my planning and was very glad at that point that I'd left really early.

The weather was cold, 35-40 degrees with light rain on and off on the drive over but none at the res itself. I got my race packet and taking the rest of the crap in the bag back to the car I affixed the number to my race belt, strapped the belt around my waist and headed out for what was a 3-mile warm-up. Good rule of thumb: the shorter the race, the longer the warm-up needs to be. I'm not sure if 3 miles was necessary, but I was nice and warm (and unfortunately also somewhat wet from sweating) when finished. I got back to the car with about 20 minutes before start time so I did my normal stretches, stripped to my race gear (HEP tri shorts and my sleeveless running top emblazoned with HEP logos and the faint white outline of an iron - apparently the Howie's ironing board needs a little more padding - from when Jen ironed on the logos) donned my Halo headband, and jogged to the starting line with about 5 minutes to spare.

(The race strategy my coach came up with was breaking the race down in to 3 parts: 2 miles, 2 miles and 2.2 miles hopefully negative splitting the parts but shooting for a time goal of 45-47 minutes. The first part was to be Z3/Z4 cusp, the second, mid Z4 but below threshold, and the third, whatever I had left. The goal was also to get faster by only increasing the cadence. As I don't have a cadence sensor on my Garmin FR 305, I have no idea if I did just that, but my times did come down at the end.)

As there was no one at the starting line and indeed no less than 5 volunteers had no idea where the starting line even was I wasn't worried about missing the start, but rather staying warm. Thankfully, we started right on time and since it's the Canine Classic, there were dogs everywhere, including in the run. I started out a little quicker than normal to stay ahead of the slower people and doggies but some of them passed me (never to be seen again until after the race...there were some fast doggies). I settled in to a low Z4 pace and essentially wound up running with this really tall guy and a couple and their two border collies.

Somewhere between miles 2 and 3, I dropped the tall guy and the collies and caught up to the dog/owner in front of me passing him in a corner. I never saw any of them again though I peeked back a few times to see where they were.

As we were running counterclockwise around the res, anyone who knows that section of the road knows it's rather rolling. I'd thought that my mile splits would either stay the same or slow a tad, but because of taking advantage of the hills and upping my cadence I was able to drop the times rather significantly for the last two miles which leads me to believe I was too conservative in the middle part of the run (explained below), a mistake I will not repeat for the Bolder Boulder.

My splits were as follows: 7:10, 7:22, 7:17, 7:19, 7:04, 7:03.

I think I was a little nervous after the first mile and backed it off a tad to make sure I had enough left at the end. As briefly touched on above, I think I might have over reacted a bit and backed off too much. Ideally, for the Bolder Boulder, I'd like those last miles to be sub-7 which, with that nasty hill at the end, might be hard.

Goal for Bolder Boulder: sub-43.

A Really Good Week

2009-04-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

I'd originally thought this week was going to be kind of bad because the gym was completely closed which mean no swimming. In actuality, it turns out that this week was pretty frickin' awesome. I was able to get all my workouts in and throw in two extras because of replacing the swim ones. The end result: for the first time in a while I've hit my mileage goals for biking and running. This assumes tomorrow won't be any different.

Monday, I did my ride at lunch and as I was going under the overpass at I270 and the Platt River Bike path, there was a car(!) parked under the bridge on the path. Forgetting for the moment that this was a really bad spot for a car (under a bridge on an Interstate), I had no idea how the car got there because there were guard rails along the highway on both sides which would have prevented the car from driving down there. So, being a good little American that spies on his neighbors for the police (big brother, anyone?) I phoned it in to the Denver police department's non-emergency number and continued on my ride. My initial thoughts weren't of anything malicious, that came later, but that car had no business being parked where it was and besides, he was blocking the path meant for cyclists and pedestrians. I should also point out that this section of the Interstate and bike path has really nothing else around it but open fields and an oil refinery.

I turned around and when I got back to the same place, the car was gone and there were two sheriff's vehicles on the path. I asked about the car and the trooper said they'd made the owner move it and I then saw that a section of the fence was down which is how the driver got through. The trooper said that he was one of the highway workers but didn't want to park his car on the side of the road. I looked down the highway and saw about an 1/8th of a mile away there were a bunch of cars parked along the side of the road. So the owner apparently drove his car an additional distance down the road, across a large swatch of grass/weeds, through the fence onto the bike path and then under the bridge.

I'm still not sure what he was thinking.

Back On Track, Sort Of

2009-04-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

After doing most of my workouts that were slated for last Thursday and Friday this past weekend, today saw me get back on track with my training. Well, sort of. You see, the gym, in its infinite fucking brilliance, decided that closing for it's annual maintenance week in late August didn't make sense because....well, honestly, I have no idea why they thought it didn't make sense. So, they moved it to this week, in April. You see, in late August, most people's training seasons are winding down whereas in April everyone's training season is in full swing. So, naturally it makes sense to pick this week to close the gym.

On the bright side, I feel my swimming is totally solid. I have zero qualms about the Ironman swim. I'm a tiny bit nervous about the bike, but only because I'm afraid I won't hold back enough - which could wind up being a double-edged sword and I could hold back too much. I'm reasonably worried about the run. I have done long runs, but only up to ~13.5 miles or so. And my weekly mile totals haven't been on track because I seem to always blow off one run each week. This is where the gym being closed could be a blessing. It allows me to run and bike 4 days in a row this week with a day off on Friday in prepration for my 10K race on Saturday.

That said, I really should be in bed now.

Heavy, Wet, Snow

2009-04-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

Last week was going well, until Thursday when the sun disappeared and it started raining. The sun wasn't seen again until Sunday. In between, we got a ton of rain, and a ton of snow. 9 News has the official total for Louisville at 8.3" but I know better. I had to shovel my sidewalk and driveway 4 times in < 12 hours. And this wasn't the light and fluffy stuff that skiers go "Woo hoo! Powder day at Vail!" This was the stuff that my neighbor accurately described as like shoveling cement. The shit was heavy.

My in-laws were in town for my Wife's 30th birthday and quite coincidentally, my weekend was free of workouts, or, was supposed to be. With Thursday's rain punting my workout to the evening and that also being my wife's actual birthday made it day off #1. Friday it snowed all day. It never stopped. It got heavy at times, and then lightened up a bit, and then got heavy again. But it never stopped snowing. I could have worked out inside, but didn't.

NFS mount Ubuntu linux drive on Mac OS X Leopard

2009-04-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

After scouring the web for how to do this, I wound up having to piece through at least a half-dozen blogs to figure out how to do this and to get it working. So, to keep you from having to do the same, I give you:

How to NFS mount an Ubuntu Linux drive in Mac OS X Leopard
-- UPDATED for 9.04 support --

One assumption I have made are that both computers are running on the same network, but they don't have to be. Your Mac needs to be able to "see" your Linux box. If they're on separate networks, you will most likely have to deal with portmaping through routers and firewalls which is still fairly straight forward, but beyond the scope of this document.

I reference my Linux box by name because I have its IP address in my Mac's host file. You don't need this however, and can simply use it's IP address instead.

I also assume you have some rudimentary knowledge of your Mac and Linux, specifically, being able to open terminal windows to get a shell and command line as well as having sudo privileges on your Linux box.

Before we begin we'll need some information for later. From your shell or terminal window in Ubuntu, execute the id command. You should see something similar to:

uid=1000(doej) gid=1000(doej) groups=4(adm),20(dialout),1000(doej)

All we care about are the uid and gid values for your username. In the output above, we see the uid and gid values are 1000 for the user doej (John Doe).
Now, execute the same command on your Mac from the Terminal program. You'll notice the output is a little different:

uid=501(doej) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),98(_lpadmin)

Note that the uid is 501 and the gid is 20. In my examples, my username is the same between my Mac and Linux, but they don't have to be.
Save these numbers or shell output for later.
In Ubunutu make sure you have the following packages installed: nfs-user-server and nfs-common. Do this by executing "sudo apt-get install nfs-user-server nfs-common" from
your shell or terminal window.

NB: this will fail in Ubuntu 9.04 because the brilliant folks at Canonical decided to remove it and I don't know why. However, fear not you can still get the package here. Install this file with the command "sudo dpkg -i [filename]" - this will error out if you somehow already have the nfs-kernel-server package installed.
Now we need to make a map of our user and group IDs we obtained in #1 and #2 above. This will ensure that when we NFS mount our drive on our Mac, the permissions and file ownership will all be set correctly. A common directory for this file is in /etc/nfs. If this directory doesn't exist for you, go ahead and create it.

Create a file in this directory called foo.map - it can be called anything, but the naming convention is to use the name of the accessing server, in this case the hostname of your Mac. Mine, creatively enough, has a hostname of mac so my file is called mac.map.

Here's what my file looks like:

# mapping for client: mac
# remote local
uid 501 1000
gid 20 1000

The first two lines are just comments. The second two map the uid and gid from steps 1 and 2 above. Here, remote means your Mac, and local means your Linux box.
NFS gets its export information (the directories that are allowed to be NFS mounted) from the file /etc/exports. If this file does not exist, just create it. Here's what my file looks like:

/home/doej mac(rw,insecure,map_static=/etc/nfs/mac.map)

The first argument is the directory on Linux that you want to be able to NFS mount. In this case, I've chosen to mount my home directory. The second parameter are the mount options. To see a full list of options, execute man exports. I've listed my Mac hostname as the server that is allowed to NFS mount this directory. The options I've chosen are:

rw - read/write
insecure - allow non-root user to NFS mount directory
map_static - the file we created above that maps our user and group IDs from Mac to Linux box. If you want to be able to write to your NFS mount, you MUST have this option set and set correctly.
Before you can mount anything on your Mac, you'll need to restart NFS on your Linux box (so it picks up the exports) with the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-user-server restart
Finally, on your Mac, you can mount this drive with the following command:

mount -t nfs bajan:/home/doej /Users/doej/foo
This will mount your home directory on Linux (bajan is the hostname of my linux box) to the foo sub-directory in my home directory on my Mac. To test everything is working correctly, cd into the foo directory in Terminal and try creating a new file. If you can, you're all set. If not, shoot me a message and I'll try and help you out as best I can.

That's it! NFS is really easy once you get the hang of it, and even if you aren't Linux savvy, it should still be pretty easy to do.

A Good Training Week - So Far

2009-04-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

This week's training, for the first time in recent memory, is going very well. Recovery ride on Monday at lunch and then a hard Master's swim practice where the coach moved me up to the fastest lane (faster than I normally do, but not with the swimming gods, they didn't show up, at least not all of them). The main set was 4x75m, 6x75m and 8x75m. The set of 4 was 25m kick, 50m swim on 1:25, the 6 were 25m drill/50m swim on 1:15, and the 8 were all swim on 1:05. Those hurt. A lot. But I hit my intervals and even got a "good job" from one of the gods in my lane.

Today's first workout was a 6-mile run w/ mile repeats. My times were 7:39, 7:02, and 6:40, but the weird thing was that the first one was by far the hardest. More intervals later on the trainer so that now, my legs are a bit fatigued. That's a lot of Z4 in one day. Luckily tomorrow's run is Z2 and I'll have most of the day to recover for tomorrow's Master's class.

From Almost Losing It - To Euphoria

2009-04-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

After Sunday's recovery ride and botched attempt at running out side in 40-degree temperatures with an ice cold rain shower thrown in I emailed my coach my week 31 data and basically lost it. I told him I was tired all the time, the week sucked workout-wise and a lack of energy to do workouts, let alone get through them.

He did what a coach should do. He gave me a good pep talk and pointed out the positives this training season:

huge base miles
LONG workouts in a difficult time of the season
the 5-hour trainer ride
going from not running at all to running half of a 10-mile run at a sub-7:40 pace.

The last may not sound like much, but remember, this is Ironman training, not short (or even long) course training.

The result: Week 32 has started off well and continues to be a good training week.

110 Miles and a Mitzvah

2009-04-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday's 110-mile ride was interesting for several reasons. First and foremost, I managed to leave for my ride before 10am, which never happens. Second, I saw a woman get arrested - that was entertaining. And finally, most of the ride was a blur because I totally zoned out for most of it. The last isn't so crazy as I usually zone out in races and for short spans in my workouts. But never for several hours. It's like being on autopilot. It's creepy, but I guess good in a way.

The route I took was my normal ride to work route plus an extension that saw me go all the way to Chatfield State Park. At some point on the Platt River bike path I realized my HR was a little higher than it should have been and at mile 38, I realized why. At mile 38, I looked to my left and saw the most sexy thing one can see out on a bike ride aside from a sexy female (if you're a guy, that is). At mile 38 I saw a flag galliantly flapping in the breeze indicating that I was riding dead on into a headwind. Which meant that I'd have almost a 30-mile tailwind on the way back. Oh, and did I mention that it would also be downhill?

Knowing this didn't make the ride out any easier. By the time I reached Littleton, the wind was really gusty and since Chatfield State Park is very exposed, the wind there was incredible. But turning around was oh so sweet. I was making awesome time. Right at the junction of the Clear Creek and Platte River bike paths, there was a couple attempting to change a flat. So, as I normally alwasy do, I asked if they needed any help. Either they didn't respond at first or I didn't hear them so I asked again and heard something about whether or not I had any tire levers. It appears they had left theirs behind. I'd like to think I taught them how to change a flat, but they were pretty novice and I'm essentially hoping that just a few tidbits stuck.

After the flat fix, I was on my way. 22 miles back to the house and all up hill. Well, 98% uphill. There's a nice downhill stretch at McCaslin and 128 and then again at the top of the hill by the Key Bank going North towards Costco. I still have to download my data to see how good the ride was speed wise. But I think it was pretty awesome w/ that long downhill tailwind.

A Good Ride and an Unscheduled Day Off

2009-04-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

I rode to work on Wednesday. This entails getting up at 5am and leaving by 6 in order to get to work at a reasonable time. I got up at 5:15, went through the obligatory "do I really want to do this?" and finally got out of bed closer to 5:25. I still managed to leave before 6 though, so no harm there.

The temperature was 37 and knowing that when I hit the valleys in Westminster and along the Coal Creek bike path, the temperature would drop, I dressed for a cold weather ride: leg warmers, booties, and two long-sleeved layers up top. I got the chance to wear one of my new Castelli cycling tops I scored off of BonkTown. It was awesome and more importantly, didn't prevent me from riding in the aero position.

Thursday, however, I was just too tired to do anything and wound up taking the entire day off - which I know is bad, but I just didn't have the energy.

A Very Much Needed Rest Day

2009-04-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

After the 4-day beating my legs took commencing Friday and ending Monday today was a VERY much needed rest day as my body is just flat out exhausted. I'm not really sure how much more I can take of this, but my coach assures me that next week will be very light and the miles will start coming back down.

Until then, this week has 6.5, 8, and 10-mile runs, along with 2 25+ mile rides and a 110-mile ride scheduled. So far, I'm already a mile behind on the running and one of the two shorter rides was done on a trainer so I'm not really sure how that equates realistically over to distance.

Dealing With the Worst

2009-04-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

So we didn't get 16 inches of snow as promised yesterday. What we did get was 3 inches that didn't stick to the roads but was very wet nonetheless. Additionally, it was REALLY cold w/ 30mph winds driving the wind chill down close to zero if not below.

Saturday's brick wound up being a shortened run w/ the full run coming today. I finished my ride on the trainer yesterday and was outside for all of 2 minutes waiting for my Garmin to figure out where I was and was thinking, "there's no way in hell I'm going to run 13 miles in this..." So, I did 6 and called it a day.

This morning, I did my full 13.5-mile run and the weather mostly cooperated alternating between sunny and not sunny until the last 3-5 miles. I must have taken off my gloves and headband and put them back on at least 5 times before just leaving my gloves on. I wound up doing a huge 13.5 mile loop from my house that had me take McCaslin to Marshall Rd by Costco and Marshall Rd all the way to the South end of the BoBo link trail. I then took the trail back to South Boulder Rd. and followed SBR back into Louisville.

If anyone's ridden out SBR, they're fully aware of the hill that starts kind of half way between Cherryvale and 75th but just keeps going up until McCaslin. It's not what I would consider to be an "oh my god" hard hill, but it sucks nonetheless. Add that the entire shoulder was completely covered in sand and I was running into a headwind my ~7:30 min/mi Z3 pace dropped to over 10 by the time I reached the top. It dropped back down once I crested at McCaslin but by then I only had a half mile left so it wasn't long enough to get my average lap pace back down.

I also haven't broken in my home copy of my new running shoes so I had to do this run in my old ones and my feet are reasonably sore. I'm curious as to whether or not they would have been had I had my new shoes and had them broken in. As I have a 10-mile run tomorrow, we'll see if my work copy of my running shoes make a difference.

Preparing For The Worst

2009-04-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

It's supposed to snow tonight, big time. Supposedly a foot of snow....yay...after last week's two debacles I can honestly say I'm not really looking forward to it. What I am concerned about is my long brick: 65-mile bike, 13-mile run.

I'm not worried about the trainer ride, after my LOTR marathon last week, trainer rides are a piece of cake, regardless of the workouts. It's the 13 miles I'm concerned with. You see, my tolerance for treadmill running is at an historic low. I hate the damn thing. It's incredibly boring, the speed is constant, and the damn thing is so loud that I can't hear the TV so movie watching is crap. And even if it were enjoyable, the prospect of running 13 miles on a treadmill makes me cringe. Running 13 miles outside is like watching a REALLY good movie, it goes by fairly quickly and is relatively pain free. Running on a treadmill for 13 miles I would have to guess is like watching History of Violence or Last Action Hero, basically, a really, really, REALLY bad movie where each scene just drags on and every time you look at your watch thinking surely 10 minutes have passed, it turns out it's only been 3.

If we get a foot of snow tomorrow, there's no way I can run outside. Snowshoe, sure, but not run. I suppose I could go to the gym and do the elliptical machine - it's at least faster than a treadmill, but I'm still looking at probably 90 minutes (I can go 8-9 mph on an elliptical, not really realistic for real world times, but better than blowing it off all together, no?)

Stay tuned, we'll see what happens.

New Shoes!

2009-04-03T21:11:00.001-07:00

I have two pairs of running shoes. One for work and one for home. The reason I have two pairs is because several years ago I left a pair on the bus. The really shitty thing about doing this, aside from the fact that no one ever turned them in to lost and found, is that they were only a week old. Additionally shitty was that I also had my pull buoy (with my name on it) from swimming in the same bag. I never saw either again.

So, I bought two pairs of shoes, one for work and one for home so I would have to worry about being responsible and actually remembering to take all my crap off the bus with me when debarking. While a little more expensive an option than some would choose to take, it's worked well for me ever since.

My most recent pair has definitely seen better days. They're a bit over a year old and each have about 400 miles on them including a bunch of triathlons and running races. They were purchased as part of a Cyber Monday, free shipping, deep discount, online shopping extravaganza. As any triathlete will tell you, the surest way to decrease the lifespan of any piece of equipment is to race with it - especially in triathlon. Things get wet from swimming, wet and salty from profuse sweating (hey, some of us perspire), and wet and sticky from sports drink spills. Anyway, these shoes were probably long overdue for changing.

Before anyone considers criticizing my length of shoe usage, consider this: cheap running shoes are essentially the same as expensive running shoes except that they don't last as long. As someone put it to me, the expensive running shoes last about twice as long as the cheap ones, so you don't really save any money. Whether or not that's true, I do know that if I wear running shoes too long, I get shin splints. And, I haven't gotten shin splints since I was a kid. 'Nuff said.

I dug around online looking for the same model as my current shoes, the ASICS Gel-Nimbus IX, only to discover that they had been replaced (of course) by the next model, X. Oh, I found plenty of IX models online, but they were in sizes of <> 11. So, I had to "settle" for the X model.

They came yesterday and man, are they sweet. I put my new orthotics in them and went for a run today. All I can say is "wow." It's awesome. Sometimes you don't realize just how bad something is until you replace it with something good.

I just need an extra set of running orthotics so I don't have to keep pulling them out of my work pair to bring home.

The (er, another) Bonk

2009-03-31T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've bonked enough times now to know how to eat before/during a workout. Yet, I still make dumb mistakes. I had the Whole Foods equivalent of a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast and took a bottle of my endurance formula drink on my ride. Sadly, it was not enough calories to prevent some bonking on the run. Approximately 4 miles into the run, it happened. The slow welling up of the combination of dizziness and fatigue with an increasingly light-headed feeling that signifies your body saying "Ok, I'm done."

More Snow Fallout - The 5-hour Trainer Ride

2009-03-31T12:18:00.001-07:00

When it snows here in Colorado, typically, the weather that follows is clear, sunny skies with a balmy temperature of 60+ degrees. While Friday turned into this and melted a significant portion of the snow, I was not really looking forward to a 100-mile ride on roads that I now clue as to their condition. Additionally, even if some local loops proved clean enough, the prospect of doing said loops 3 or 4 times to reach 100 miles was also not very appealing. Thus, the 5-hour trainer ride was born.

In all honesty, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I threw in the extended version of LOTR: The Two Towers, watched it all the way through (3 hours, 40 minutes) and then threw in it's successor, The Return of the King. Fast forwarding through all the Gollumy parts, i.e., slow plot parts w/ Gollum, the last 1:20 went as quickly.

Thus, at least for me, I think I've found the solution to the boredom of trainer riding: Find an epicly long movie that has stuff you really like, e.g., action sequences and before you know it, you'll be stretching, and your wife will yell down that it's 6:30 and you're meeting your sister for dinner in 30 minutes.

Two Feet of Snow - The Aftermath

2009-03-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

After shoveling our sidewalk and driveway 3 times in 18 hours and nursing a VERY sore shoulder/neck for the last 24 hours, the sun came out today and teased us with typical gorgeous CO weather right after a hellacious snow storm.

The garage door is now fixed so we have the use of our cars back. As the repair guy left, his final words were "That's about as bad of a crashed door as I've seen in a long time."

Ha, nice.

It was bad enough that I totally blew off my workouts for Thursday but we also ordered Pizza Hut for dinner...yikes...but OH so good.

Two Feet of Snow

2009-03-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

That's how much snow is surrounding our house. I've shoveled the sidewalk and driveway twice today and the wall of snow lining the driveway would serve any child as a solid snow fort or barricade as protection against snowballs.

But alas, there were no children or snowball fights. Just a solid day of working in front of the computer from the home office and blowing off both scheduled workouts. I can handle several hours on the trainer. I cannot, however, stand more than a few minutes on the treadmill. Even with the TV on.

It really sucks too because overall, this week had been going rather well training-wise. I will do some sort of workout or workouts tomorrow, but I was supposed to do a 100-mile ride on Saturday. There's no way in hell, well, maybe only in hell, all this snow will disappear from the roads by Saturday. I don't care how great the plows are.

On top of all this, our garage door is broken. It is currently at a very odd angle and is mostly no longer on either of its tracks. A repair person is supposed to come by tomorrow but with this weather - I wonder if he'll show up. I hope so because both our cars are trapped inside.

Live @ Altitude, Train @ Sea Level

2009-03-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's awesome. 'Nuff said.

I'm in San Diego on vacation and as anyone who lives at altitude will tell you, going to sea level and training is a huge treat. You have to workout a lot harder to get your heart rate in the proper zones. E.g., today's run had mile Z4 intervals in it. I was able to do 6:40s in low Z4 whereas at altitude, if I could even do 6:40s they'd either be in high Z4 or in Z5. The difference? At altitude, that's above my LT which means there are side effects, namely lactic acid.

Additionally, this was the first real run on my new orthotics and my feet felt weird at first but after a mile or two, they felt great.

Orthotics!

2009-03-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

I'm now the proud owner of custom running and cycling orthotics! Yes, two separate pair - one for running and one for cycling. I had a chance to use the cycling ones on a 25-mile ride today with Z3 intervals and they were AWESOME! No stress on my fascia at all. Dr. Andy Pruitt is a god...and he is ALL business during a session. I swear, I think they keep him so fully booked at the BCSM it must be why he doesn't do chit-chat.

I tried out my running inserts but it was only for a shorter run and on a treadmill at that. I'll have to wait until Friday before I can give them a good test.

Training vs. Blogging

2009-03-17T21:20:00.001-07:00

The desire to blog starts like that feeling of getting a new toy - exuberance and excitement at first as you play with it all the time but it inevitably fades as more important things make you forget. And when you remember that you forgot, you're not in a place to mitigate the issue.

It was not my intention to wait over a week before blogging, life and training invariably get in the way. Thus, I have an enormous amount of respect for folks who blog daily on their own. Those that blog for a living get somewhat less respect because hell, if I had to do it for a living, I'd find something to write about too.

Bad Run, Good Run

2009-03-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Still tired from yesterday's ride and LATE night post-JJ Dinner festivities (we got home after midnight) I wasn't über excited or ready for today's interval run. I finally got to the gym after noon and as I turned on my Garmin I immediately received a low battery warning meaning I'd have to wing it on the distance. I swapped my dead GPS for a watch from the lost and found and away I went.

The run got better as it went on. My intervals got progressively faster. The way out was slightly uphill and into a gusting headwind (of course). But this time, when I turned around, I had a nice tailwind.

When I got back to the gym I wrote down my splits from the borrowed watch and exchanged it back for my Garmin. Earlier this evening I manually entered the split data into my training log and realized that something was wrong. I was only supposed to run 7 miles but with my splits, that meant my penultimate split meant I was running 30-minute miles. I don't even think I can walk that slow. After mapping my run on mapmyrun.com, I realized that I wound up running 8 miles instead of 7.

Ooops.

More Wind

2009-03-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a recurring theme doesn't it? This week has seen more windy days than I can remember in a long time and while it may be good training, it sure is tiring. Saturday's Z3 ride became more of a race to get back to Boulder before it started snowing. It turns out, while the fog in the foothills looked foreboding snow never actually materialized. The wind, however, never stopped materializing. In fact, it materialized in several different directions.

My ride out was in a headwind but I was going easy because I knew that I'd be able to fly when I turned around. After all, headwind going out = tailwind coming back right? I turned around about 5 miles North of 75th where it crosses 66 and prepared myself for the awesome tailwind in which I was about to ride. Any minute now, it'll kick in...any minute now...

Much to my dismay, the tailwind was not to be found and the only solace I had was that it was essentially all downhill to Hygiene and flat to Gunbarrel. My speed increased significantly from my first hour to my second hour but I don't believe it was due to any wind assistance since a large portion of that hour was in some form of head/crosswind. Riding into Gunbarrel I became rather frustrated at how difficult riding had become in the past 10-15 minutes and why I didn't seem to have any power. Riding by the fire station in Gunbarrel revealed why. There, on a flag pole, was the American flag rippling proudly in the breeze. Indicating that I was riding head on into the wind. So much for my previous equation: headwind out = tailwind back.

The Wheelsucker

2009-03-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

As a rule triathletes, well, many of them anyway, don't draft. In competition (save for ITU events) it's illegal and in training it's not really conducive to effective training (though I'm sure there are those out there who will beg to differ). As such, I don't draft when training, even when I'm on my road bike.

For drafters out there, proper drafting etiquette when it comes to a total stranger is to make sure the person you're drafting off of 1) knows you're there, and 2) is ok with you sucking wheel. For me, I don't like drafters...period. And if you don't ask and just magically show up on my wheel, well, I'm either going to make you pay, or make you pass. Friday's ride saw a very windy day (as appears to be becoming the norm here these days) with the headwind coming on the ride back to my office. About 5-6 miles from the office I rode past a park where a guy was walking his bike down towards the path from what I assume to have been the port-a-potty located there. About 5-10 minutes later, I happened to turn and see him sucking my wheel and I have no idea how long he'd been there.

When he finally passed me, he never said a word to and parked himself right in front of me, I assume to return the drafting favor. I dropped back outside the draft zone and just let him hang out there. After about 4 minutes he dropped back behind me again because it must have really sucked to have to sit in the wind like that for SO long. We did this back and forth for a few cycles, him pulling for a few minutes with me hanging back and then dropping behind me. Finally we hit a "hill" while he was pulling and slowed down considerably forcing me to draft because I couldn't pass due to oncoming path traffic. After the traffic went by, being really annoyed, I passed him, kicked it up to Z4, and dropped him.

I guess it shouldn't bother me as much as I let it, but the dude NEVER SAID A WORD. Sure, I could have said something, but then, I wasn't drafting.

A Slow Recovery Week

2009-03-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

Up until yesterday my recovery week wasn't anything to write home about, other than my tempo ride on Monday. Tuesday was a rest day and Wednesday was a bunk workout day because I had a meeting at work from 10:30-1:00 and 5 minutes into my run I felt dizzy. I managed to slog through 2.5 miles mixing walking and running because I really just had no energy and bailed on the swim I was supposed to do.

Today, however, was different. Much different. And much better. My mile intervals in my 6-mile run at lunch were awesome even with the gusty wind blowing debris and dust everywhere. My trainer ride was fine on the new saddle but I'll withhold judgment until I can get more rides/time in the new saddle before I declare victory.

Shitty News

2009-03-03T21:50:00.001-08:00

I had several appointments at the BCSM today to get fit for running and cycling orthodics. I'd been waiting for my new FSA to kick in which it did at the beginning of February. I procrastinated an entire month. My reason for obtaining orthodics was because in between last year's Vineman 70.3 and the 5430 Long Course (3 weeks) I managed to do something to my left foot which turned out to be acute Plantar Fasciitis.

If you Google Plantar Fasciitis, you'll get well over 600K hits. It's a common problem and there's a lot of gimmicky devices out there to supposedly help you get rid of it.

My solution at the time was to stop training for the season (after all of the 5430 Long Course, well, up to the first mile marker on the run), take a month off, and start training again, but using the elliptical machine in lieu of running. Additionally, I took to massaging my foot twice a day with whatever I could find. It turns out that the shaft of a long screwdriver works really well. After another few months of that, I started running again in late November (I think) starting my runs at a mile and upping by a half mile every other day (or so) until I got to 7-8 miles. I then got back into my regular running regimen for training. All that worked great....until a few weeks ago when I managed to tweak my foot in the pool, of all places, from pushing off the wall.

I've not been as good about massaging it as much as I did before but will be after today's appointment. It turns out, that I now have a bone spur on my left heel. Bones can only do one thing under trauma...grow. My fascia either partially tore, or partially detached and the bone grew to try and fill the gap.

It was a very sobering moment, looking at those X-rays.

An Exhausing Weekend

2009-03-03T21:18:00.001-08:00

Saturday saw a 100-mile ride that took over 6 hours because of a 10+ mile headwind the entire way back from Ft. Collins to Boulder. And while I'll be the first to admit I bitch about headwinds (and wind in general) it wasn't the wind that made the ride bad. I was actually mostly ok with the wind. The problem was with my gloves and my seat (and thus, my ass). The weather, overall, was nice. It was bright and sunny but a cold 40 degrees. And windy.

My gloves had no padding in the palms so after trying to ride the first 50+ miles in the aero position as much as practical my palms became really sore. I have padded gloves - one day I'll actually remember to use them.

I had on two layers on my legs which was, in hindsight, too much and made for some stiff riding. Up top, I was fine, but my undershirt, actually a rash guard from Quicksilver meant for surfing, had a seam that ran the length of my arm and somehow managed to position itself right in line with where my forearms rested on my aerobar pads making for some more uncomfortableness when trying to ride in the aero position.

The worst thing, though, had to be my ass. I have a fi'zi:k Arione saddle which is not technically a triathlon saddle. Because it's not a triathlon saddle, one's seat bones slide forward on the saddle and force your crotch to bear the full weight of your torso. After 50-60 miles, this becomes too much (especially if you're a guy) and it starts hurting and makes the last 40 miles of the ride really suck.

I found out today that the Arione was the defacto standard for a while because there were really no triathlon specific saddles out there for the longest time. Times have changed. There's a plethora of saddles out on the market now and I wound up with the Specialized Phenom which is actually a mountain bike saddle according to Specialized's website. I don't care, it was the most comfortable and while it almost never turns out this way, was the most inexpensive.

After Saturday's 100-mile ride, Sunday brought forth another ride, 23 miles, and a swim (I bailed on the 1-mile run I was supposed to do after the ride on Saturday). I thought I'd be tired for the 23-mile ride, and I was, but I didn't suffer through it. I did it on the trainer watching a movie (Blade II) so maybe that helped. I was pretty thoroughly tired by the swim and ended it after 2500m.

The ride, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because my tempo ride on Monday, when I thought my legs would be totally shot (like they were 4 weeks ago when I did my last century) but I'm convinced the 23-mile ride on Sunday really helped flush out the legs and I was able to do 35 minutes in Z4 despite the massive headwind on the last 8-miles of an 11-mile Z4 TT. Speed was good, cadence was good. Workout was good.

The Hardest Week

2009-02-26T21:47:00.000-08:00

I believe it's fair to say that the current school of thought when it comes to hard core training of any kind with endurance sports, e.g. running, cycling, triathlon, etc..., is that the body, and thus the athlete, performs better when on a cyclical training schedule. I don't know who is responsible for inventing the concept, but I first noticed it when I used CTS as my coaching provider. I suspect it came from Chris Carmichael's training program with Lance.

Don't consider this a ringing endorsement of CTS as a coaching provider. To be fair, I've had rather mixed results in my tenure there. Turnover is a problem and it felt like the coaches never really had a vested interest in my training or results. Whether that was due to the sheer number of athletes allocated to each coach (I recall once my coach at the time remarked that he had 15 Adam's, so god only knows how many athletes he was actually coaching at the time), or they genuinely didn't care about my results because I was never a rock star.

Anyway, I digress. My training plan is on 3-week cycles, two weeks on, one week "off." And here, "off" does not mean no workouts, it simply means lower volume and lower intensity volume. The theory is that the recovery week allows the body to, well, recover, and get stronger. With my 3-week cycle, and it may be this way for all cyclical training programs, I don't know, my hardest week is always the week prior to the recovery week. It is the week with the most volume and the most intensity. Consider this week: almost 10K meters swimming, 165 miles cycling, and 29 miles running, and my day off was Wednesday when I got a much needed 90-minute massage. There are 5 days of running, 4 of cycling with one being a 96-mile ride, and 3 days of swimming.

I already missed my 7-mile tempo run on Tuesday due to a run and power class the night before, and the legs still recovering from a late brick on Saturday evening. And tonight, I finished 2-hour trainer ride just after 10pm. Tomorrow is relatively easy with only a 3.5 mile run at lunch and Master's swim tomorrow evening.

The training is going well and my running, which has long since been my weakest link, has improved significantly over the last two seasons. I just wish I wasn't tired all the time.

The Perpetual Tired

2009-02-23T22:21:00.001-08:00

I'm tired. No seriously, I'm really tired. I still have 4 months to go before Ironman CDA all but 3 weeks of which will be training weeks. I hope I make it.

After tomorrow's tempo run I'll have run 37 miles since last Thursday. After tonight's ride, I've ridden the equivalent of 111 miles since Saturday. After tomorrow night's swim, I'll have swam over 10,000 meters since last Wednesday. My longest ride will be 130 miles, my longest run as part of a brick will be 16-miles (after an 80-mile ride). My longest swim will probably be in the neighborhood of 4000 meters. That's a LOT of training time.

Maybe it's just normal for Ironman athletes to be this way. I wonder if the pros sleep normally and then take mid-day naps between workouts. I just know that working 40+ hours/week along with 13-20 hours training doesn't leave time for much else when you factor in the 60+ hours of sleeping (there's 168 hours in a week).

I have a 90-minute massage on Wednesday...I can't wait.

A Good Brick

2009-02-21T22:21:00.000-08:00

So it was snowing last night when I was blogging and much of it was still on the ground when I made the decision that I wasn't going to ride outside today. It turns out I could have as the roads were mostly clear and dry. But, I had errands to run with the wife and didn't get started until after 1:30. Not good if you have a 61-mile brick to do.

Neal Henderson at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine says that riding on a trainer is like 1.5 times what you would do outside. So the math goes something like this. Assuming an average speed of 17 mph, it would take me 3 hours to do a 51-mile ride outside. The inverse of 1.5 is 2/3 so 2/3 of 3 hours is 2 hours. So theoretically, riding on the trainer for 2 hours is like riding your bike for 3 outside. Not sure if this is accurate or what, but if Neal says it's true, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The man coaches some world class athletes and knows his shit cold.

So, 2 hours on the trainer followed by a 10-mile run outside (oh hell no, I'm SO not running 10 miles on a fucking treadmill - I don't care how much money you pay me...$1000? Seriously? Ok, I'll do it). Sadly, no one paid me to run on a treadmill today so I ran outside and had a great run. My running has come so far in two years it's crazy. My legs used to be absolutely DEAD for the run after a ride. Maybe it's just something your body needs to get used to and that's why most of the world class triathletes are in their 30s. It just takes that long for the body to get used to all that punishment - slowly ramping up your speed on the bike and run while your HR zone stays the same.

T-minus 4 months and counting for Ironman CDA. I think my training is on target and I like how I'm feeling.

The Better Half

2009-02-20T21:54:00.000-08:00

The state of Colorado proudly boasts about it's 300+ days of sunshine a year. And to be sure, Colorado receives a ton of sunshine. Unfortunately, the mere presence of sunshine doesn't consider whatever else the weather might be doing at the time. It could be 10 degrees and sunny. It could be 50 degrees and sunny but there's sustained winds of 25 mph gusting to 75.

Sustained winds are a mixed blessing when riding outside. In a crosswind, you ride like you haven't had your V8. In a tailwind you really want to be on your way back home. In a headwind, you scream and curse Mother Nature until you're too tired to bitch anymore and slowly plod along (or maybe this is just me, but I seriously doubt it).

Today was supposed to be an easy 22-mile ride day with Master's swim tonight. Yesterday's 11.5 mile run went really well and while the legs contained some residual tiredness, they were up for the ride. Only, it was windy out. Very windy. And it kept changing directions, or at least it felt like it. It's one of those rides that was supposed to be in Z2 but in order to achieve that you have to ride in a really low gear. I knew the ride was going to take a while, so I only did it by time. It just wasn't worth it to do the full distance. The wind is blowing too strong to really get anything out of the ride other than a lesson in patience and dealing with frustration (something from which I'm sure I could benefit, however, I would rather have sat at my desk and continued to work than deal with that.

It's snowing right now so tomorrows 61-mile brick will be done mostly indoors. I won't run 10 miles on the treadmill so I'm hoping the cold front doesn't make it so cold that it's just not worth it to run outside. I'm pretty motivated though, we'll see if that holds true tomorrow.

Riding like into the Wind

2009-02-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure anyone actually enjoys riding in the wind unless it's a tailwind and you're on your way home. Today was not such a day. When the wind blows in Denver, it's generally pretty predictable. Predictable in direction and strength. It blows anywhere from the West to the North and it usually blows hard (double entendre intended).

So rather than do my normal lunchtime cycling route which consist of riding South on the Platt River bike path until it's time to turn around I decided to head ESE on the Cherry Creek bike path thus avoiding the cement recycling plant and various junkyards around mile 10 and the very stinky garbage plant at mile 11. In return, I enjoyed a very nice 11-mile ride out to Cherry Creek Reservoir (it's very scenic, no garbage plants or junkyards) and a not very nice 11-mile ride back in a pretty nasty headwind. It was manageable until just West of the Cherry Creek Country Club when the bike path and Platt River dip down into this channel that runs in between the two sides of Speer Blvd. This channel becomes a wind tunnel when the wind blows and it flat out sucks if you have a headwind. This last section of the path is not long; it was the last 3 miles of my ride and was supposed to be my cool down. But trying to ride in Z2 in a nasty headwind is like trying to stay in Z2 while climbing Old Stage - you can do it, but it either involves walking your bike or riding so slowly that pedestrians pass you and give you the eye.

I get frustrated very easy in such situations and can go from patiently plodding along at some ungodly slow speed to a Z5 hammerfest in order to get the damn ride over with. Today was no exception. I just hope that combined with this evening's Master's swim workout, I didn't tank my legs for tomorrows 11.5-mile run.

You may recall that two weeks ago my long run didn't turn out so nice. This time I'm bringing my fuel belt, a pouch for my iPod, and will damn sure eat a larger breakfast. There will be no bonking.

A Good End to Week 23

2009-02-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

Normally, it's hard to finish the training week strong because by the time it's over, I'm usually so exhausted that getting above average quality workouts in is more rare than the norm.

So, I'm very pleased with how training week 23 ended and I suspect it is due to my doing Saturday's ride on the trainer rather than outside. My 9-mile long run on Sunday (with 1.25 mile Z3 intervals) was very good and my 3000m swim afterward was reasonably effective. Additionally, my light Z2 run yesterday contained very decent pacing for such a low effort workout and my performance in power class last night was just awesome - indeed, the best in quite some time. We did 4 blocks of 5 1-1:15 intervals with increasing rest in between each interval. Prior to the penultimate block of 5, I bumped my wattage up to 250 (from 240) and for each of the last five intervals, bumped the wattage up by 10 so that I finished at 300.

Honestly, the only difference I felt in my legs was that the lactic acid built up quicker but it wasn't that much harder. Even my coach said I looked really strong.

Yay for weeks ending on an up-tick.

Everybody's Working on the Weekend

2009-02-14T22:47:00.000-08:00

Living in Colorado has its advantages. If you're an athlete, the training at altitude allows you to excel at sea level. If you're an outdoorsy type person, guaranteed there's something here for you.

However, if you're a cyclist or triathlete (or duathlete) when it snows and you have a ride to do it usually means you're relegated to the trainer. Just like when training outside, training inside can be great or can really suck.

I've found that as long as I have a good^*movie on TV, then the workout is great. If there's nothing on, and you can't find a movie to watch, then time can pass excruciatingly slow. Thankfully, today was not one of those days. My 2:30 on the trainer went relatively quickly and I even had a break 2 hours in to help clean up the pee our new puppy decided to leave on our new carpet. (how nice)

The one drawback to the trainer, at least mine anyway, is that I can never make it simulate the resistance of the road, or even the CompuTrainer I use in the lab. Thus, it's either too lose and my wheel skips, or it's snug and I can't get too far out of my granny gear or it's like climbing up Magnolia. If there's a happy medium, I haven't found it yet. And why someone hasn't designed a trainer that doesn't result in you actually destroying your rear tire over time is beyond me. It doesn't seem like it'd be hard. Have some type of drum on which you can mount a rear cassette and have that drum connected (either via a chain or a belt) to a resistance unit. This way, the resistance is constant and one can shift normally. The rear stay on the bike would simply mount to the drum like it would to a normal rear tire: rear derailleur around the cassette and the dropouts on to some small studs. A normal quick release skewer could be used to keep the bike from disengaging.

If anyone out there hasn't patented this yet, do it and build it. I'll gladly be a guinea pig.

^*here, the definition of good will certainly vary greatly amongst everyone I know.

Attention Ladies

2009-02-12T21:24:00.001-08:00

Ok men, now that I have your attention I'd like to address a problem we guys have when it's really cold outside yet we go out riding anyway. If we under dress downstairs those that have fallen victim to what I can only describe as FPS, or Frozen Penis Syndrome, know just how ungodly uncomfortable and painful it is. For everyone else, basically what happens is that when your body gets cold, it pulls blood away from the extremities into to the core to keep all the vital organs warm and fully functional. (I'm sorry, but according to the body, the penis is NOT a vital organ - though I know plenty of men who would beg to differ).

My weather feature in my taskbar told me that it was a balmy 37 degrees when I left for my ride. Fine. I dressed accordingly, or so I thought. The ride out was great. It was into the sun and while my toes were a little cold, the wool socks did their job. The problem occurred when I had to turn around and head back...into a headwind and with the sun at my back. Suddenly, the cold toes were a problem and FPS started setting in, and yes, it was VERY uncomfortable. So, with about 3-4 miles left in what was supposed to be an only Z2 ride, I cranked it into Z4 to try and get warm, or more specifically, thaw my privates. It kind of worked, but not to the degree that I was hoping and I wound up having to warm it up with my hands before blasting it with hot shower water. If you think it hurts just being cold, try blasting it with hot shower water first without trying to slightly warm it up first. I guarantee that you have not yet experienced pain quite like that. Warming up first is incredibly important. You have been warned.

Naturally, holding one's groin in one's office is bound to draw attention (because of course strutting around in Lycra and cycling shoes doesn't) and sure enough, one of my (male) coworkers noticed and knew exactly what happened (he's a cyclist) and mentioned he uses a wash cloth for extra insulation. Genius, sheer genius.

Who knew a wash cloth could actually be useful. So, be safe out there men, wear protection. Aka, a washcloth.

Recovery Week? Uh, Don't Think So

2009-02-11T20:14:00.000-08:00

So the 2.5-mile recovery run at lunch was awesome. It took longer to get dressed for the run and re-dressed back for work than the run. What a great way to spend a recovery week....and then I went to Master's swim...

~500m warm up before Wolfgang strolls in fashionably late as he seems wont to do lately. 16x25m blah blah blah....2x[7x100m] (wtf?) first 7 steady on 1:35, second 7 fast on 1:40 (again, wtf?). More 25s. 6x100m on 1:35 (more ouch). Some more 25s and pull the cover.

So much for a recovery week.

Rest Day!

2009-02-10T21:59:00.000-08:00

Ah, c'est merrie. After last nights devastating power class in which our workout profile suspiciously resembled the side view of a saw blade (and not the simple /\/\/\/\ saw blade either this was a sadistic looking one with vertical walls instead of peaks and valleys. I'd draw a picture, but this thing doesn't support that feature.

My legs were so tired, I had to lower the LT wattage from 240 to 180 after the first main interval block. I just had no power. Add to that the nasty stomach bug I got suspiciously after eating lunch with my sister at Tokyo Joe's where I couldn't keep any food inside me (no, I wasn't throwing up...use your imagination) causing me to be what I can only assume to be SEVERELY dehydrated.

I'm all better now, which seems to reinforce the idea that something was in the beef bowl at Mr. Joe's. Suffice it to say I will refrain from visiting their establishment for a while.

Today's Workout -Training Tired

2009-02-08T18:05:00.000-08:00

Swim (...so...tired...)

22-mile ride (yes, on top of the long-ass one yesterday)

I know, I know, it's usually always the case when you're training twice a day, but there's something to be said for training tired. Not in a "way to go" kind of way, but in a "I actually managed to workout" way.

Let's face it, motivation is usually low and it's VERY easy to find distractions - say, if the spouse gives you permission to purchase an Apple TV on your quest to set up a media server in the house (even if your ultimate goal is to have two, one for each HDTV). I am proud to say, however, that I was able to resist the temptation of setting it up until after my swim, but before my ride. I only swam and rode for 30-minutes each because next week is my recovery week and I still have power class tomorrow night and I need some legs for that class.

Yesterday's Workout

2009-02-08T08:42:00.001-08:00

92-mile bike (ouch)

2-mile run

I'd not ridden the Boulder-Horsetooth and back loop since 2001 and despite misplacing my directions was able to navigate the roads correctly until mile 56 when I found the directions at a gas station stop to refill the water bottles. I somehow managed to forget to start my watch until about 5.5 miles later and thus wound up not hitting 100 miles on my watch - I was curious as to what would display when that number was hit. Now I'll have to wait until next time.

My legs felt surprisingly good for the ride - I was tired toward the end, to be sure, but the biggest problem was that my gloves had no padding so my palms were really sore and OMG, my ass was killing me. The shorts I chose to wear were NOT long distance riding shorts despite ample application of Aquaphor to the chamois pre-ride.

Hitting Loveland I also became rather lucky as the wind did a 180 and shifted from the South to the North, meaning I had a tailwind the whole ride home (SWEET!)

The legs actually felt fine as I hopped off and started the run. Not wanting to count my chickens before they hatch (did I actually just type that?) but perhaps this is a good omen for Ironman CDA.

Today's Workout

2009-02-06T20:10:00.001-08:00

3000m swim (various)

Did master's instead. Main set was 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m on a 1:50 base. In hindsight, this was probably a little slow and I should have changed lanes because while we descended (time wise) through each block, my last 100 was on 1:27. Which is very close to my PR which means either I am in way better shape than when I did my PR of 1:23, or I totally slacked off when I did that PR....or I totally slacked off during the main set.

Either way. It was a good time.

Why Bonking Sucks

2009-02-06T20:03:00.001-08:00

Aside from the obvious reasons that bonking is bad is the fact that I become ungodly hungry after a long workout in which I bonk. I have no idea how many calories I consumed yesterday but it was a ton:

Fig Newtons (far too many), cheese sticks, Triscuits, turkey jerky, chocolate, a can of Hansen's kiwi-strawberry, a bottle of iced tea. And this was just for lunch.

For dinner I had two slices of homemade cheese pizza with gobs of ground buffalo on it, a leftover crack brownie from the tub my wife made for our Superbowl party, and two Skinny Cows (ice cream sandwich).

And I was still hungry. Only common sense (and it getting late) kept me from eating more.

Today's Workouts

2009-02-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

11-mile run
11-mile ride

The run should have been easy. It wasn't. I didn't take food or water with me (or apparently eat enough for breakfast) and started lightly bonking at mile 6. I slogged through the run to just before mile 10 and had to walk. I was so thirsty ate dirty snow. Stay tuned to see whether or not that was a good idea.

Layoffs Suck

2009-02-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

No, not those layoffs, though, those really suck too.

If anyone is wondering how bad it hurts to take a month off from doing Master's swimming and then go back and try to pick up where you left off...it hurts...a lot.

On the flip side, I've not felt this good in a really long time. Must have gotten an extra dose of endorphins. Suffice it to say, I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight.

The Triathlon Saga

2009-02-04T14:33:00.001-08:00

Don't think of it as a career or job, it's a way of life where everyday is a new adventure. A new adventure in fatigue, and the occasional fantastic workout. But mainly fatigue.

It's about how far you can push yourself before your mind takes over and says "enough." It's about bonking so hard on that 40-mile ride you have to stop and fall asleep standing up over your bike on the side of the road still 10 miles from home. It's about the joy of finally getting home and passing out on the floor of the living room with a half-chewed bite of Cliff bar in your mouth and waking up an hour later with it all moist and pasty. It's about the pain when you realize that you have to be at work in an hour and you're not sure you can actually stand up.

But you awaken from your standing coma, you swallow the Cliff bar, stagger to the shower, and still put in an 8-hour shift of standing on your feet behind either the bakery counter.

That, was once a day in the life of this triathlete. I still bonk in workouts. I still pass out on the floor, albeit, without partially masticated food in my mouth. I traded the bakery counter for ultimately a life in Software Engineering. The pay is better.

Today's Workout

2009-02-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

6-mile Z2 run with Z4 intervals
3900m swim (various)

As usual, the run was fine - there's always a question of what will happen when I pass the sketchy section on the North section of the Platt River bike path from Confluence Park. If you're not familiar with this section, it's the stretch between the railroad bridge and 31st St. It's sketchy because the path runs next to a warehouse district one of who's buildings is a Salvation Army shelter. The shelter draws all manner of transients many of whom hang out on this stretch of the path.

To be fair, I've never had an incident and they've almost always been courteous in saying hello or moving out of my way when I run by. But there's still the feeling of uneasiness because it's very clear from how some of them dress that they have nothing left to lose.

The legs are still a little tired from Monday's power lab workout blasting through my sadistic coach's CompuTrainer power profile that looks like Bart Simpson's hair only the peaks are at 110% of LT.

Tonight's swim will most likely consist of slogging through Wolfgang's master's swim class and hoping I don't embarrass myself too much because I've not attended class in at least a month.

Tech, Life, and Triathlon...

Referencing third-party library source code in a GWT project.

Using Spring and MyBatis for non-POJO Data Retrieval

Reading Spring Controller and RequestMapping Definitions

Five Weeks Post-Op

Busy Summer: Injury and Fatherhood

Husband, anchor...daddy - Part I

Different Strokes

The Last Run

Sponsored!

Moving On [Up?]

If Facebook existed back in the day...

A Season Reflected

How I Wish to be Awoken: An open letter to my dogs

Race Report: Boulder Peak Triathlon

Race Report: Loveland Lake-to-Lake Triathlon

Race Report: 5430 Sprint Triathlon

Ok, back to triathlon

Um, Excuse me? What's your motivation?

Why server monitoring is imperative for web applications

Zen and the Art of Patience

Why "Quick and Dirty" is bad for software projects

Training Again...Sort of

Summer Updates

How to create a namespaced JavaScript Object/Class

Post Season Drama

More Post-Race Musings

In the Era of the Cell Phone

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - Epilogue

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - The Run

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - The Bike

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - The Swim

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - Race Morning

2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene Race Report - Prologue

The Weather

The Bike/Run Course

Wednesday

The First Ride

The Condo

Colorado...Wyoming...Montana...Idaho!

The Nutrition Dilemma

A Solid Week

Tapering...Sort of

T-minus Two Weeks

Iterating over JSON data

Bolder Boulder - One Day Later

3 Miles, 6 Miles, 9 Miles

More laziness

Whoops!

Holy Cow!

A Recovery Week - Yay!

Weekend Workouts

A Rather Decent Week

F*#king Wind

Race Report - Canine Classic 10K 2009

A Really Good Week

Back On Track, Sort Of

Heavy, Wet, Snow

NFS mount Ubuntu linux drive on Mac OS X Leopard

A Good Training Week - So Far

From Almost Losing It - To Euphoria

110 Miles and a Mitzvah

A Good Ride and an Unscheduled Day Off

A Very Much Needed Rest Day

Dealing With the Worst

Preparing For The Worst

New Shoes!

The (er, another) Bonk

More Snow Fallout - The 5-hour Trainer Ride

Two Feet of Snow - The Aftermath

Two Feet of Snow

Live @ Altitude, Train @ Sea Level

Orthotics!

Training vs. Blogging

Bad Run, Good Run

More Wind

The Wheelsucker

A Slow Recovery Week

Shitty News

An Exhausing Weekend