The phone rang and (future) Dr. J picked it up. The call for her to join me in my now year long biking phase has been answered...with a resounding Y-E-S!
We picked up (future) Dr. J's new bike this afternoon from Performance Bikes. Not 2 hours later, it already has 7 miles on it. What a start. We rode on Sligo Creek Parkway the whole way, which is nice and flat. Saw some interesting houses...one looked like a domesticated star destroyer with sharp contrasting lines and some prismatic windows. We also saw some kids learning to ride bikes with their parents running along side. It was hard to tell if the parents were protecting their kids or they were protecting the rest of us. We had a fun time and the weather was great. I'm looking forward to our next ride.
(Future) Dr. J's new ride
The second part to this story is that we currently have FIVE bikes. In a previous post, I noted that (future) Dr. J's limit on the number of bikes in our house is THREE. With her new Schwinn Searcher, we are now 2 bikes over the line. And I'm happy to report that of those 2 bikes, we are each 1 over.
Bikes #1, #2, & #3. Eventually, the two on the left will go.
I saw that you broke your collar bone. I'm writing to let you know that you're not alone because I feel your pain. Rather, I felt your pain.
The recovery is not fun and it will drive you crazy. Sleeping will be painful, showering a b****, training next to impossible, and don't even ask about wiping post-#2. You opted to have a plate and screws inserted at the break. So, you won't have the pleasure of feeling your new bone ends rubbing against each other like me. Wuss.
You shaved your legs, put on skin tight spandex, went for a leisurely bicycle ride. You girl. I, on the other hand, was playing a real man's sport with the big boys, football, when I broke my collarbone.
Try to stay positive and remember what it's all about. You may say it's all about cancer awareness, others may say it's the glory, but we all really know it's just the little yellow stuffed lion from le Tour.
You and you and your cuddle buddy
Hope you feel better soon. Let me know if you want any recovery advice. Or advice on how to be more tough.
Brian
[Note: This is satire and I'm not even qualified to carry Lance's jock chamois]
[Update: Lance already started training again...3 days after his crash. That's pretty tough.]
As all 20 visitors from the last week and a half have noticed, I haven't posted in 10 days. Haven't been in the mood. I didn't post about my 4 mile run from a week ago Sunday. My legs actually felt normal before, during, and after the run. Exciting times that didn't last long. Another 4 miler on Wednesday went ok. Thursday, the legs were screaming. No, they weren't screaming "are we here yet?"
You Tube has weird stuff
A five hour car ride to NYC didn't help on Friday either. But NYC was awesome as always and lots of fun. I had planned to run through Central Park for a 5 miler on Saturday, but the legs weren't having any of it. I was really looking forward to that...extremely disappointing. I did go down to lower Manhattan with Jeff for a couple hours. We probably walked several miles. That counts right?
Tree lined path along the Hudson river
Sweet eagle! Some sort of WWII memorial.
As close as I've ever been to the Statue of Liberty. See it back there?
I've given up trying to stick to a training schedule for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (5K?). I'm just...whatever. To perk up my spirits, I'm riding in my first ever MTB race this Saturday...I think. Kevin e-mailed some guy who says he'll give up his registration, but the transfer hasn't happened yet. I don't even know where or what the race is. I'll post an update about the race...hopefully, within the next 10 days.
Instead of running my scheduled 4 miles on Saturday, I planned to go ride the Baker's Dozen MTB race course. However, rain showers were already attacking Manassas and moving north toward Leesburg by noon. With an hour drive to get to Leesburg, the forecast wasn't looking good for getting a ride completed.
Further to the north near Catonsville, MD lies Patapsco state park. Kevin and I decided to go there to get away from the rain and a MORE post indicated the trails were ready for primetime. Correct on both accounts.
The trails were in great shape. Not many ruts. No mud. Smooth trails ready for a butt whoopin'. Unfortunately, it was Kevin's butt that received the whoopin' because he decided to jump the rock.
For some reason, The Rock kept saying "You better ask somebodyyyyy!"
Kevin made it over the rock. Regrettably, he landed almost vertically on his front wheel. Never a good thing. Over the handle bars, he tried to turn it into a headstand, but to no avail. The failed headstand turned into a somersault, which ended with Kevin's back squarely across a downed tree trunk. This is what happened to his helmet.
These things happen, but it's a good thing Kevin wore his helmet
The helmet worked as intended. You should check out what happened to Kevin here. THIS IS WHY SAFETY GEAR EXISTS PEOPLE. USE IT!
God bless his spirit, Kevin is tougher than me. After collecting his thoughts...and quite possibly his unmentionables, we continued on.
Patapsco is awesome. It has lots-o-trails for variety and good climbs that turn into great downhill sections. Patapsco is a step up technically (rocks & roots mostly) from the trails I'm used to. So, it offers challenging terrain for me to improve my skills upon.
Continue riding. Stay safe. And always wear your helmet.
I haven't felt like posting much this week because I'm getting tired of writing about leg issues. I did get a foam roller, which is for self massage, core strengthening, and relieving muscle tightness. It helped my sore hamstrings, but it seems like that soreness just moved up to my glutes. The foam roller definitely does something. I'm just trying to figure out exactly what. This instructional video helps.
If (future) Dr. J won't massage my legs, the Go Fit foam roller will
I'm skipping my scheduled 4 mile run today to go ride the Baker's Dozen MTB course. I believe it's the same course as the Snotcycle race, but riding clockwise instead of counter. The course is on a private farm and the owners are gracious enough to open it up today. Difficult to pass up. So, I'll squeeze my 4 miler in tomorrow and adjust this week's runs accordingly.
I may have discovered a biomechanical cause for my sore hips. Yesterday, I noticed that when I tense my glutes (yes! buns-of steel), that I could feel the burning. Weird, who would have thunk a tight tush would cause such issues.
Ever since then, I have been trying to make a conscious effort to relax all my leg muscles. So far, so good.
After a cookout and 4 adult beverages yesterday (thank you warm weather and DST), my legs were tight this morning. A recipe for frustration lately.
This afternoon, I warmed up, stretched (which didn't do much) and ran my scheduled 1.5 miles. Granted, I ran slow and stopped for a 4 minute stretch break about 5 minutes in, but I concentrated on making sure my legs were relaxed. Lo and behold, I sat in a chair all afternoon without much discomfort. YEEHAW!
Hopefully I figured something out, or maybe I just had a good day.
DST is awesome. Now I can bike, run, or walk the dog after work in daylight (as long as the temperature cooperates). DST is so great, I don't understand why regular time exists anymore...just get rid of it! The USA should be the anti-Arizona and refuse to recognize regular time. Actually there is a part of AZ that follows DST...a donut-shaped part. Turns out the Navajo Nation observes DST while the Hopi Reservation, which is completely contained within the Navajo Nation, doesn't. Interesting.
Another interesting DST story:
Terrorists (on DST) prepared time bombs and smuggled them to their counterparts (just switched back to standard time). As the bombs were being planted, they exploded, an hour too early, killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims.
Not the most upbeat story, but sweet, ironic justice none the less. Check out other interesting DST history and facts at WebExhibits.
I had some interesting discussions yesterday with Kevin. He's been laid up all week, recovering from wisdom teeth removal. I wanted to head over to REI to spend my 2008 dividend on another bike mount for my rack. Kevin wanted to go too. I suggested that we get a short road ride in because of the 60+ degree (F) temperatures.
I had a 3 mile run to do before I could go out. To make a long story short, I finished the 3 miles, but I had to stop at least 4 times for thorough stretching during the run just to finish. 37 minutes of run time (really slow) took me at least 50 minutes clock time. Needless to say, I finished, but my legs weren't in that great of shape.
I decided that a road ride wasn't the best idea as I need to give my legs as much rest as possible. This disappointed Kevin greatly because he had been waiting all week to ride. As usual with the two of us, the mood was a bit adversarial because everything has to be a competition and neither one of us likes to admit defeat.
Kevin told me to suck it up and quit whining about my legs. I tried to explain that I wanted to ride just as much as he did and that I was dissappointed too. I may have thrown an "I hope you get a repeptitve injury some day so that you might understand" in there. Uncalled for, but boys will be boys. My point was that I am sucking it up in an attempt to still run the Cherry Blossom race.
So what's better, sucking it up by playing trough the pain or resting?
If I rest, then I shouldn't be training at all for the Cherry Blossom race, and I probably wouldn't train for much of anything at all because it seems that something always aches more than I'd like. That doesn't work. But I don't want to suck it up when I shouldn't and cause real problems down the line.
It's a delicate balance. Yesterday, I drew the line between my run and a road ride.
So are the last few days of my life. ROUGH...like the way my legs feel if I sit down for more than 20 minutes at a time. AHHHHHHHH! If can't make it through my run tomorrow (3 mi) without problems, it's gonna be time to pull the plug on this Cherry Blossom race.
On the good news side of things, I received my REI dividend yesterday. $54.something. And I got a 20% off coupon. So, I'm going to use those to get another bike mount for my roof rack. Now I'll be able to carry two bikes!
Thinking about this hip thing in my dreams, or in between them really as I turned over, I think I overdid my leg/core strength training on Tuesday. One of the ways to improve my hip situation is to strengthen the muscles around them, or so I read. I'm thinking my muscles were still pretty tight from that yesterday, which is why I felt off during warmups. I'm going to try a new strategy of off day rest with lots-o-stretches. Maybe that'll help.
Like a seesaw, so go my hips. I could feel it before my run while stretching. I thought I warmed up pretty well, but I guess not. During the first mile (of 2), I decided that my foot strike is all over the place...heel, arch, outside, ball...I can't seem to consistently hit the same part of my foot. I don't know if I'm concentrating on it toom much because of this hip thing or if I've always been inconsistent and just haven't noticed it. Supposedly hip bursitis is caused by poor biomechanics. If I had stuck with biomedical engineering in college maybe I would know the cause, but I've been told over pronating can cause it, which I tend to do. Wish I knew a running specialist doctor who would observe me on a treadmill for 10 minutes.
You know what hurts the worst? Sitting down. The actual run isn't bad nor afterwards during cooldown and stretching. It's when I sit down for long periods back in my office when it's the worst.
Continuing in the long tradition of sweet white rappers (yes, i'm talking about Vanilla Ice, Lil Wyte, and the immensely talented Eminem), I introduce my rap alter ego SNOW-RIDA (snow-rye-duh).
Why SNOW-RIDA? Well, the DC area got about 6 inches of snow last night and this morning. When I got to work and found a text message waiting from Kevin, I knew we were going riding. Hence SNOW-RIDA. I took off at 2:30 pm, headed home, then over to Fairland. I was a little late for our 4 o'clock meeting because the lock on my bike rack was frozen (still is).
This was my first snow ride, and it started out SHAKY. I fell in the parking lot within 5 seconds of getting on my MTB! We did the small loop first then headed back toward the cars because Kevin forgot his camera (all pictures are courtesy of Kevin). I fell at least twice on the inner loop and had to put my foot down about a dozen times. Roots with snow on them are not cool (indeed they are cool with snow on top of them, but i'm not picking up what they're throwing down). Instead of enjoying the ride, I was fearing it.
I'm probably about to fall
I was about ready to call it quits back at the car, but I had to get back on the horse one more time. Kevin suggested that I let most of the air out of my tires, which made all the difference in the world. Off we went yet again. We ended up riding almost the whole trail. We bailed on the last half mile section because it was getting dark.
The trees were our best friends when trying to clip in
The most difficult portion of the ride was clipping into my pedals. I had to get off my MTB many times due to loss of balance and/or traction. I actually think the constant balance issues will help me improve my non-snow balance later on. Also, I figured out that when losing traction, it's best to shift into the lowest gear, put my weight on the back of the saddle, pedal as slow as possible. This allowed my tires to grip.
Log domination
In the end, I enjoyed riding in the snow. I love being in the woods where there's a couple inches of snow on the ground whether I'm biking, hiking, or skiing. The actual riding isn't my favorite (I prefer smooth, hard-packed single track), but it was a nice change of pace (once I got the air out of my tires) and the scenery was awesome. I'd try it again.
Week #2 of Cherry Blossom 10 Miler training (redux) kicked off today with a successful 1.25 miler. With all the snow aroud here, the treadmill was my only option. In fact, one of the reason's I went to work, instead of staying home to spend QT with (future) Dr. J (who got the day off), was that I wanted to use the treadmill.
Here's a list of everything that went into my 1.25 miler:
Over 50 minutes of activity just to run 1.25 miles! Now that's a slow pace. At least runner's world gives me an extra 0.05 mi and rounds up to 1.3 (see right).
Yes, that's right. I took home the Family Blog Champion title for February 2009, which is given to the family member with the most number of posts. This is a competition that I made up and haven't really told the other contestants about.
