Miner's Blog

Chicago Marathon, Part II

2010-10-17T20:34:00.011-04:00

I love Chicago. If it wouldn’t be such a drastic change in lifestyle for my kids, we’d already be living there. Since we can’t live there yet, we do our best to make a trip at least one time a year. Fortunately, we have some very close friends who live there and as an added bonus, they don’t mind us staying with them when we come into town. This weekend it would be Jen, I, my cousin Tim and Aunt Marilyn who would be guests at Casa de Papczun for the weekend. We all agreed that we would take it easy in the City on Saturday, doing our best to stay off our feet after we hit the expo in the morning. The Chicago marathon Expo is the expo’s of all expo’s, but the highlight for me was meeting Ryan Hall and his wife, Sara there. Jen and I were just strolling down a side aisle and there they were, at a booth promoting their Foundation called “Hall Steps Foundation” signing autographs. What caught me off guard was how few people there were there. It was as if nobody knew who he was and it seemed like the Marathon organizers didn’t know he’d be doing that because that guy of all guys should have taken center stage at an event like this. I quickly pulled out my race bib and asked him to sign it. I also shared with him that I had been telling everyone who said they wanted to follow my progress online that I had registered under the name Ryan Hall just so they could see a great time! They both thought that was pretty funny but unfortunately Ryan withdrew his participation from his race earlier in the month so he wouldn’t be giving me that US Marathon record that I was looking for!

Race day as they all do came pretty early on Sunday with us getting on the Metra and getting downtown at 6:30. The forecast for the day predicted temps in the mid 80’s with clear skies so I knew the weather wasn’t going to be any help at all. Typically, I really like it to be down in the mid 40’s at start time. This day we’d be starting in the low 70’s. That’s great weather for spectators, not so good for runners. My first impression of the Marathon when we got into the start corral was man, this is incredible. There’s something about being a part of 38,000 runners who are all sharing a common goal of trying to finish a marathon that is hard to fully express in words. The other element that made the experience so incredible was the tremendous spectator support that was out there on the course. It wasn’t like other events that I’ve done where there have been spotty spectators at best. Chicago was non-stop people from start to finish. Each neighborhood that I ran through had its own identity and its own unique way to celebrate the runners. Whether it was dressing up in costumes, making signs, playing instruments, or handing out candy along the way, each spectator I passed made this marathon unique. One of my favorite moments was running through the northside of town and there along the side of the road were some people holding what had to be a 12’ tall cutout of Brutus Buckeye. I had to shout out “OH” and there was on cue a thunderous “IO” response. A lot of runners near me laughed and one even commented how cool of a saying that was. Of course it is.

The excitement and energy of the crowd wasn’t going to be enough to carry me through all the remaining miles on this day though. I knew that by the time we got to mile 13. The heat was catching up with me and of course, the lack of any real training miles in my legs would be my real limitation. I told myself at that point to just try to get to mile 17 and than evaluate what to do at that time. I knew Jen would be in that general area and if it was going poorly, I could call it a day then. Mile 17 came and although I was suffering, I was able to play a mind game with myself that I was finally down into the single digits of miles left in the race so there really wasn’t that many more to go. Funny how after you’ve run that far those 9 remaining miles seem short. That would be a game I would play in my mind for the remainder of the race as well as giving in and walking. I began that at mile 18. I’d walk a little bit and then run for a little bit. Honestly, my legs felt relatively fine and I wasn’t noticing any pain where my fracture occurred but it was I just getting tired. I hadn’t done any type of cardio work for longer than 2 hours and the way this day was going, I knew it would be closer to a four hour effort to reach the finish. I knew there was no dishonor in walking though as there were a lot of people walking at this point in the race. I had seen people walking as early as mile 10 so I knew I was ahead of a lot of people out there. So the remainder of my race would be walking for a while and running for a while. I’m actually surprised that I finished as quickly as I did because it felt like I was doing so much more walking than actual running.

I crossed the line in 4 hours and 32 minutes. That was 45 minutes slower than I thought I should have finished. My only consolation was that my cousin Tim finished 30 minutes slower than his goal time and Pat finished 40 minutes slower than his goal time. We all agreed that if we had been running the race solo, that we would have quit that race. This was by far the worst marathon that I’ve ever run but it’s also the one I’m most proud of. Although I wasn’t physically prepared to run this race, mentally I was able to persevere and make it to the finish line. I’m officially retired from marathons now. I think I’m better suited with how little time I seem to have these days to run ½ marathons and shorter events. However, as I’m sitting here in a Columbus hotel the night before the Columbus Marathon (Jen is running the ½), I’m getting the itch again. Maybe another shot at Chicago next year?

Here is the data from my Garmin for the day. The first two miles are bogus data as my watch was having trouble dialing in with all the tall buildings we were running next to.

Chicago Marathon, Part I

2010-10-15T19:01:00.023-04:00

It has been a long time since I've sat down to blog anything. So long in fact that I wasn't sure I would remember my username and password here but fortunately, I was able to retrieve it from the back of my mind and here I am...sitting at my laptop typing away my 2010 year. My big (and only) goal for the year was the Chicago Marathon which occurred last weekend (10.10.10). From my initial registration in early February, it's all that I've had on my mind. Turn a corner in my house and there was a copy of the route staring me in the face. Open up the cabinet door to grab a snack and there was the route map asking me if I really wanted to grab an Oreo. No matter where I turned, Chicago was staring me in the face. So knowing there was a hefty registration fee on the line, I decided I'd try to find a way to get to this marathon healthy for a change. Some reading this post might remember that I have a poor history with marathons. Training for Columbus in 2008 I suffered a stress fracture in my Femur and was only able to complete in the 1/2 marathon. Cleveland 2009, had IT Band issues, started suffering at mile 10 but gutted it out to finish in under 4 hours. Then in the fall of 2009, I suffered a hip flexor strain which set me back but on minimal training leading up to it, I completed the Columbus marathon in 3:38. My goal for Chicago was to get there healthy and finish faster than 3:30. In the back of my mind, I was hoping that my training would go so well that I could get a Boston Qualifier which for me would be finishing faster than 3:15. No pressure though, the real goal was just to find a way to get to Chicago healthy.

So mapping out a plan and working with an old friend of mine who helped coach me during my bicycle racing days, the plan was to stretch out my training so that in lieu of a typical 20 week training plan, I would slowly build up over 8 months so my body would have time to adjust to the increased mileage and this would also give me ample opportunity to rest. Going through the spring the training was going great. I was shedding pounds and becoming a stronger runner. I entered the Cleveland 1/2 marathon and ran a PR time of 1:38. Mid-distance runs (5 to 6 miles in length) were becoming easy. I was feeling that running tempo's at 7:30 min/mile were becoming too easy. That was a good feeling.

Unfortunately, that feeling was about to change in mid July. I had just completed a tough hill workout and on my next day's recover run, I noticed some soreness in my shin. Not thinking much of it I continued on my run and chalked up the soreness to a tough workout. That soreness lingered on for the next several weeks so at the end of July I decided to breakdown and go see my sports medicine physician just to see if there was anything serious going on. Sure enough, there was trouble in River City. Doctor said the x-rays didn't show a fracture but there was signs of the bone trying to heal in the area where I was having some pain so that was an indication of some micro-fractures. His recommendation, back off on weekly runs but still try to get my long runs in. Sweet Chicago was still on track! The next big run after this appointment was a 15 miler. I've taken to doing all of my long runs down in the Valley on the Towpath. Although it's an out and back route to get the mileage in, it's always a softer surface than the road, there's plenty of drinking fountains and bathrooms on the route so it's a lot like running unsupported like I would in a long road race. I have to believe that if the bone wasn't fractured before that run, it certainly was afterwards. In hindsight, what I should have done was not to do the long runs but keep up with the small runs and do those on a treadmill. I knew at that moment, that any great time in Chicago was most likely out of the question. My only hope was to get back on the bike, renew my membership and the gym and try to cross train until I could get healed up enough to start running again. It took about 4 weeks before I could really start running again but it was slow tempo, short distances and on a treadmill. Before I knew it, the Akron Marathon was staring me in the face and I had previously registered to run the 1/2 as a test for Chicago. I find it funny that when I registered, I thought it would be a test to see what kind of time I might be able to aim for but this time, I was running it to test my leg and to see if I could even run Chicago at all. The aim was to run slow and try to finish pain free. I finished in 1:48 which wasn't horrible and I only had mile soreness in my leg. I saw that as a win-win situation, I knew I could run Chicago and I thought I could put together a good time.

With only two weeks between Akron and Chicago, the only thing I could do was be optimistic.

Part II of Chicago Marathon coming tomorrow night.

b

Miner's Blog Update

2010-02-03T12:19:00.006-05:00

I have no idea if there is anyone out there in the blog-o-sphere who bothers to read this blog or not anymore. More timely updates would probably guarantee more readers. Since my posts have in general been sports/fitness related, I will avoid filling in details from the past several months like Christmas, Elves & More, New Years, etc. If you really want to know the details, check me out on Facebook.

Having made the transition last year to 'runner', I felt it was time to make a shift back to more generalized training. What exactly does that mean? To me, it means having a good balance in several different activities. Fitness should be more than cardio and it should mean more than being able to run 26.2 miles or riding my bike 100 miles. All those are great goals from specific sports, and I have had fun achieving them both, but with my two sons getting older, I'm really having to find the need for better balance so that they can grow up with having a father around...something that I wasn't given the pleasure of having until later in life, but that's a story for another day. (I think my careful use of punctuation has avoided a run-on sentence there but it looks like I pushed it to the limits!)

In 2010 I will only be running one marathon in the fall. This Monday I registered for the Chicago Marathon that happens on October 10th. In my previous training experiences, I believe that I need a substantially long training block which gives me lots of rest periods to get me to the start line healthy and in peak physical condition. I have had some type of injury at the two marathons that I've run which kept me from performing at my best and the third one I had to completely cancel due to a stress fracture in my thigh. By picking a marathon in the fall, I have 10 solid months of training time to get me up to the long training runs that I need to complete it while not hurrying the process and putting my body under any additional stress. What I like about this concept is that it also allows me the opportunity to get back on the bike. I never really got off the bike but there's a huge difference between commuting to work and riding with my buddies from the race team. I have no intentions of racing this year as I don't think I can sacrifice Saturday's and Sunday's away at the races but I look forward to joining the team on the ritual Thursday night training rides out at Middlebranch. For anyone who has ridden with the team there, those efforts are more difficult than 90% of the races that I have ever entered.

So, as I mentioned previously I wanted to have a more rounded fitness routine. So far I have only addressed running and cycling, not quite well rounded yet. I'm happy to say though that I now have a membership at my neighborhood gym (The Natatorium in the Falls) where I am swimming three days a week and doing some strength training. I'm hoping to also start lifting with Tim House at his local fitness local (a.k.a. his basement)as he has a lot of experience and can help guide me in the direction that I need to become well rounded. So how do I do this while still not sacrificing time with my family....early morning workouts. I am at the gym or in my basement by 5:00 a.m. to get it all in before work. It makes for a long day but I'm willing to live with it.

Until next time,
b

Columbus Marathon

2009-10-20T12:18:00.010-04:00

This past Sunday was the 30th annual Columbus Marathon. This was my second marathon attempt this year, the first being in the spring in Cleveland. Having run the half marathon in Columbus last year, I knew what to expect and I wasn't disappointed. Cleveland has a lot to learn from other cities. From Columbus, they can learn how to put on a great event. Plenty of free swag, a great, safe course, plenty of fluid stations and most importantly, lots of people out cheering you on. Of course, Cleveland struggles here in that they run their event downtown and in the business districts where people don't live. Nobody wants to drive to actually cheer on strangers running...do they?

After losing 8 solid weeks and the majority of my long training runs due to an injury, I had no real expectations other than trying to make it to the finish line. (For example, in lieu of running 40-50 mile weeks, I was running 8 to 20 mile weeks. Lost lots of opportunities there to increase fitness levels). Sunday morning I woke up early feeling good, ready to tackle the days challenge. For me, that usually means trying to calm the nerves and get some food in me. This time around I had no problems. I think I finally got my thinking right in that all I was doing was going out for a long training run. Nothing less, nothing more. This took all the stress away from me for the day and I think that helped big time when I approached the start line that morning.

My plan for the day was to hook up with the 3:30 pace group which would equate to roughly an 8 minute/mile pace. I knew that this was probably a bit too ambitious but I didn't want to sell myself short as I knew that on any other day, I could probably comfortably keep that tempo. The miles went exactly as I remember them going last year, effortlessly. There was a point around mile 6 where I contemplated leaving the group and going ahead since I felt that great. Fortunately I was able to reason that there was still a lot of miles left so I was patient and decided to wait until later in the race to make moves like that if I still felt that good. That decision probably saved my day from disaster.

I was happy to hit the 1/2 marathon mark. Not only for the mental benefit of knowing I was half done, but to also lose 9,000 runners who wouldn't be going the rest of the distance. Running solo on training runs, I don't have to worry about adjusting my stride or pace for others. Running in a large group like this I was always having to make minor adjustments as people were trying to squeeze into the smallest of holes to move up. Seemed sort of funny to me to make such great efforts for such minor gains.

Approaching the water station around mile 15 I took a bit too long to get my water and get moving again. Although I run through the stations, the pacer leading the group does not slow down at all. Not sure how they do that but I learned it's better to get ahead of them before a stop rather than get behind them and try to catch back up. Mile 15 found me not being able to get back into the group. I wasn't worried as I was only 10 feet behind them and not losing any more ground to them. This pattern would hold up until mile 18 where things slowly started to get away from me. The data below shows that at each mile, I started adding on seconds per mile. I account this to two things, the lack of training runs at these distances and not enough nutrition during the race. I had a bowl of cereal in the morning and then I popped Cliff Blocks starting at mile 3 and continued every 3 miles until mile 12. I had taken the Gu they were handing out at mile 7 but that didn't settle well with my stomach. I missed the Gu stop at mile 15 and started popping the Cliff Blocks again after mile 18 once my stomach settled down. I also learned at Cleveland to avoid the Gatorade as the mix's are a bit heavy and tend to upset my stomach as well. Instead of an energy drink, I was running solely on water. I assume at this point that I had depleted my body of the glycogen it needed and that my body was burning fat for fuel. I'd be interested in some others observations on this so feel free to send me your comments.

The last 10k were rough in all honesty. I was tired but my body just plain hurt. I was happy that my hip injury wasn't causing me problems, but now my legs, bones and joints just hurt. That's to be expected though and all you can do is suck it up and carry on. At mile 20, I certainly wasn't going to quit and run, walk or crawl, I was making it to the finish line.

Finishing this race was awesome. I was a big boy and didn't cry but it was an emotional experience. Glad to have completed it, glad to have pushed myself to my limits and glad that I had fun. I can honestly say that I had fun on Sunday.

So what's next? As of now, that's too early to say but I'm considering tapering back to only 1 marathon a year. Most likely a fall marathon so I can do all my running/training outside in lieu of on a treadmill during the winter. I'm going to continue to run and look for 1/2 marathons and 10k's to keep my fitness level but I'm also looking forward to getting back on my bike and getting back out with my friends.

Here's a link to my Garmin Data.

b

11 Days to Showtime

2009-10-07T12:22:00.004-04:00

Only 11 more days until the Columbus Marathon. You can say that I've been training for this event for over a year now since it was my intent to run the full marathon there last year but injury forced me to downgrade to the half instead. I have been running nonstop since then.

I'm beginning to believe however that marathons might not be my 'thing'. Here's my case history: Columbus 08' injured w/ fractured femur; Cleveland 09' ran marathon with an IT Band injury but I finished the race; Columbus 09', Hip Flexor strain and thigh splints. So far I'm 0 for 3 in terms of getting to my goal races healthy. I wonder how many runners get to their races really feeling good?

I'm still planning on running the race. I've worked too hard at this point to quit. The good news in all of this is that I'm finally back to running some mid level distances (14-16 miles) which gives me some confidence but the bad news is that I'm running them painfully slow to keep the pain manageable, approximately 60 seconds/mile slower than my goal pace. If I complete the race, I should expect to finish up around my Cleveland time which is just under 4 hours. That's a hard pill to swallow considering that I was on target for finishing at 3 hours and 30 minutes.

I will stop complaining now and focus on having fun which is really why I got into this thing in the first place. It will be fun running among 12,000 other runners. It will be fun seeing the thousands of spectators line the streets cheering everyone on. It will be fun to cross the finish line at the end of a hard effort. My plans are to enjoy this one and worry about the future another day.

b

My rambling thoughts...

2009-08-16T11:35:00.006-04:00

I seem to be starting all of my blog updates these days with…it’s been a long time since my last blog. To be honest with you, I find myself using Facebook more these days than anything else, so if you’re interested in more timely updates, I’d recommend checking me out over there.

I’ve heard the media report in the past months that as Americans, we are living in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I’m not an economist and I don’t pretend to be one but until this last week, I wasn’t completely feeling the effects of this recession that we’re living in. Last week, the office that I work for unfortunately laid off 10 employees. That might not seem like a large number until you realize that this is 25% of the entire staff. Fortunately, I wasn’t one of the 10 and I still have my job. Unfortunately, I lost the opportunity to work with, learn from and mentor to some of the greatest architects, interior designers and architectural interns that I knew. It was a big blow to the office and I can only imagine what they are all going through at this moment. Unfortunately for the State of Ohio and our great nation, these 10 only make up a small handful of people that are loosing their jobs everyday. I do not have the answers on how to solve the situation but I can only trust that our elected officials can and do so quickly. Also, if you’re looking for a new building or having your current one renovated…give me a call!

The only reason I am bring this up is I’ve been thinking a lot about the media statement about this being the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I am fortunate to still have my grandparents who grew up the Depression and I’m lucky to be able to have a great relationship with them. I wonder if my grandparents would have been interested in buying the new iPone or LeBron James new $160 pair of basketball shoes. I don’t have to think a lot about this because I know the answer is no. Priorities for this greatest generation were to simply live, buy food, clothes and try to keep your house. Times are different now then they were then so it's not an easy apples to apples comparison for me to make so I will refrain from doing so.

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t condemn those who have the expendable income to get these gadgets, for those who may not, please play it more conservative so I don’t have to keep paying for your mistakes. Of all the s@#t I've had to deal with because of my parents, the lesson of being financially conservative seems to be paying off for us right now.

I’ve been asked why I’m not racing this year. Focusing on running is a good excuse but it’s not the only reason. In all honesty, I just can’t justify the economic cost this year. From the $60 USCF race license to the $20 min. race entry fee, that’s money that I’m taking away from my family for things that they could be doing. If I look at the savings for an average year of cycling, I’m already at $300 on these fees alone, not factoring in things like food, travel, equipment, etc. I know it doesn’t seem like much and in the big picture, it’s really only pennies to the dollar but I made the decision early in the year that I’d rather save that time and cost and keep it in the family, perhaps to help pay for our family vacation…which by the way we didn’t go on this year just to play it super conservative. I hope the situation will change so I can get back out there with all of you next year.

Ok, that’s enough for my ramblings right now. As you can tell, the recent changes at the office have had a profound effect on me and I’ve always treated this blog as my therapy session, whether anyone agrees or disagrees with my statements. I promise that the next blog posting will be much happier.

b

Updates

2009-06-17T12:37:00.004-04:00

I've said it more than once so far this year but this time there seems to be some actual truth to it. I am finally riding my bike again. Let me emphasize that I'm only riding, not doing hardcore 2x20's or other threshold training workouts for all my racing buddies out there. I'm happy to be just back out on the bike. I was finally able to get serious when I got back to commuting to work via bike. It's only 5 miles into work but on the way home, I can take as long as necessary. With quick access to the Valley and having both Tim and Josh living up here, it makes for a nice opportunity to get some decent miles in. My hopes are to stay consistent and to at least ride after work 2 out of the three days that I ride in by bike (I can't ride everyday due to having to drive to project meetings, pick up the kids, etc.). I most likely won't ever get that high end race fitness that I would need to be competitive this season but with no racing (other than jumping into the Chapel Races in July) on my schedule this year, I'm not worried. I only need to try to stay close to Troche and House on our training rides. Fortunately they're good 'mates' and although Troche takes sheer delight in dropping my a#$ on any climb now, he always seems to wait up.

Marathon news......I'm training for Columbus this fall. I'm not becoming a marathon junkie, only want to have a better experience than I did in Cleveland this spring. After Columbus I'd like to be able to run the giants of marathons like New York, Chicago and of course Boston. Who knows, maybe add London and Berlin to that list! I won't get ahead of myself.

See you out on the road...don't pass by too fast.

b

Cleveland Marathon

2009-05-18T21:33:00.003-04:00

How do I even start blogging about my marathon experience? I guess the easiest way to get things rolling is to say that I am most proud of my wife for completing the 5k run the previous day. She was inspired to start running after being part of the experience in Columbus last fall. She’s never cared about athletics and I don’t believe that she’s run a day in her life previous to training for this but she did it, she had fun and she’s decided that she’d like to do more 5k events this year. I am now busy scouring the internet finding some local 5k runs for her to go to. I love it.
I apologize now but this blog post is going to get lengthy so get a cup of coffee, something to snack on and get comfortable. As I hinted in my previous blog posting, I have been having some issues leading into this marathon. It all started when I bought a new pair of shoes. I had been previously running in a pair of Nikes and was having big time issues with blistering and loosing toe nails. I went to my local running shop (who will remain nameless for now) and explained to them the problems that I was having. Under the guidance and direction of the experts there, I switched to a pair of Mizuno’s that gave me more room in the toe box. The sales clerk also took another look at my old Nike’s and my feet and suggested that I go to a lightly supported shoe in lieu of the more support that I was used to. He said I was a neutral runner and that I could get away with any shoe. Being an architect, I followed his advice strictly for aesthetic reasons…..nothing more. Within a week, I regretted that decision as my legs were feeling extremely sore. I took them back and switched to another pair of Mizuno’s that they said were the same exact shoe to my Nikes in terms of support. They lied to me or were badly misinformed. I tried running in those shoes for three weeks but the pain just kept getting worse and worse. I was stuck between a pair of Nike’s that hurt my feet or a pair of Mizuno’s that hurt my legs. In the process of this 5 or 6 week time frame, I severely cut back on my mileage and intensity so I could get healthy It was last Saturday (May 9th) mornings run where I went out for a quick 3 miler where I gave up. My legs hurt so bad I could barely complete it and there were several times when my legs were about to give out. I decided I had to make some changes quick so somewhat salvage Cleveland. I quickly showered, put the kids and headed up to Hudson to another running shop called Vertical Runner. I took in both pairs of shoes and explained the issues that I was having with them. The clerk had me tried on both pairs of shoes, walk around in them to analyze my stride and then he did a test that I haven’t seen since I was a little kid buying shoes at the Gold Circle. He tested to see where my toes were at. Here’s where the story gets funny to you and aggravating for me. He said that although Nike’s are narrow in the toe area, if I was running in the right size of shoe I wouldn’t have that issue…my shoes were too small for running! What? Are you kidding me? That’s a mistake that I would expect to get if I bought stuff at Foot Locker of Dick’s, not a professional running store. The next thing that aggravated me was he told me that my Mizuno’s were not the same support but lightly supported which explained the pain I was having with my legs. I left the store with a new pair of Nike’s that were a half-size larger than I previously had. The only question now was how could I get ready to run 26.2 miles in a little over a week if I could barely get through 3 miles earlier that day.
The only answer that I could come up with was I had to take the entire week off from running. The best I would be able to do is to take my dog out for some long walks so I could get some time in my new running shoes. The other thing that I did was schedule an hour long massage for my legs. Having had several massages before on cycling trips, I’m a believer in the benefits of massage and highly recommend them to anyone.
Come race morning I was nervous. More nervous than I would normally be on any given race day which struck me as odd as this was really only a training run now, absolutely no pressure to hit any specific time. Even with that, I had a hard time controlling my nerves and had difficulty eating anything before the race. I was able to keep down half a banana and a third of a Cliff Bar. I knew this wasn’t going to be good but my only hopes were to get to the start line, start running and start getting some nutrition in me before it was too late. I need a bit more than 100 calories to complete a marathon. The plan for the day was to jump in with the 3:30 pace group and to see how far I could go. In all of my long training runs, I kept paces similar to that so it didn’t seem like it would be a terrible stretch. I was running with my good friend Patrick from Chicago who I knew would be strong and I figured having him there would be extra motivation to keep me on track. With the start bell finally going off, we were on our way. Our pace became comfortable and once we made our way through a few of the slow pokes, we found ourselves running with the 3:20 pace group. I wasn’t worried about the tempo; I was only worried about my stomach that wasn’t settling down. I’ll cut the story somewhat short, my stomach never really let up. One minute I would feel good, another I would feel bad. I was happy though that my legs were feeling good. That feeling wouldn’t last much longer however. It was mile 10 exactly when the pain crept back into my legs, exactly where it had been only one week earlier. I knew I was in for a long day and Patrick could tell I was in trouble. I told him to go ahead and run his own race and not to worry about me. With a little more convincing he left and quickly made his way up the road.
Each mile after this became more and more difficult. My only relief was knowing that at mile 13 I would see my wife cheering me on and I was hoping that would be enough to carry a bit further. It was and I was happy to see her. I was very close to giving up and the pain was really unbearable at the time but I made the decision to take it mile by mile, to complete what I had started. I had spent too much time training for this to just give up. So, mile after mile I ran, taking water at each water stop and waving goodbye as each pace group passed me by. My only goal from the start was to the finish the race and that was my only thought as I struggled on, mile after mile. As I turned onto Lakeside, I could see the finish line but my feet wouldn’t pick up the pace, I could only struggle on with the miserably slow pace that I was moving. Seeing my lovely wife at the finish and my family cheering me on as I limped in made it all worth while. A bit embarrassed and disappointed in my time, I was happy to have it over with. I am only disappointed really in that I couldn’t enjoy the moment. What I was hoping for to be a fun experience turned into 10 miles of fun followed by 16 miles of torture. Sitting here 24 hours later I can now take pride in accomplishing something that most people will never even try. Will I try another one? Not sure. I’ve told myself I’d wait at least a week or two before making that decision. My only plans for now are to find that 26.2 sticker for my Subaru.

b

Down to the wire

2009-05-15T14:27:00.004-04:00

Have to make this one quick...lots to discuss but very little time to do it. Less than two days until the start of my first marathon. Am I ready? I'm not really sure. The past month of training has been really bad. I haven't been able to get the volume and intensity in that I needed to so I'm going into Sunday's start feeling a bit under prepared in all honesty. I'll talk more about the reasons why in my next blog post.

I've always approached Cleveland where my only goal for myself was to finish standing up. I've tried to keep myself pretty level headed in terms of not focusing on time at all. I think this has been a good approach for me because I've not set myself up for failure. I'm going into Sunday feeling relaxed, well rested and in all honesty ready for a pretty fun run. I'm looking forward to the physical and the mental challenge that will come. I'm looking forward to being back into the mix with several thousand other runners who all share the same passion. I'm also hoping that the excitement of the day along with running the whole race with my good buddy Patrick will aid me in at least a few of the miles. The lesson that I've learned through this training process is this; 26.2 miles is a hell of a long way to run. I don't care if you're a sub 3 hour marathoner or a 6 hour marathoner, the effort needed to tackle this monster is almost overwhelming. For all those who have beat me there, I sincerely applaud you. I hope that after Sunday, I can proudly call myself a marathoner and display the 26.2 sticker on the back window of my Subaru.

b

Is it over yet?

2009-04-29T12:27:00.005-04:00

Less than 3 weeks to go until Cleveland. I'm not ashamed to say it but I honestly can't wait until the big event. Sure I'm super anxious to push myself to run 26.2 miles but the other part of me is I'm just anxious to be done with it. I have seemed to slip into a cycle where everything just seems to hurt. Not painful like broken bones pain, just sore like sore muscles and joints. Part of the problem I'm sure stems from my shoe issues. I'm still trying to find that perfect pair. My Nikes are too old and cause my toes issue due to the tight toe box. My Mizuno's are spacious in the toes but have made my legs super, super sore. I'm now deciding to train in my Nikes but run the race in my Mizuno's. I'll suffer the consequences later. Besides that, I think I'm just sore from the weeks of mileage that I've been continually running. My body is in great shape for runs up to 7 or 8 miles, but continually doing longer runs on the weekend is taking its toll. I'm learning a valuable lesson, I need to rest but then start running those longer runs sooner in the marathon training plan if I'm going to take another shot at Columbus later in the Fall. I just need to make the physical adaptations of running at that distance just like I did when I started getting to 5 or 6 miles in length. That being said, I'm happy that I'm still relatively healthy and barring any disaster like catching the Swine Flu, I should be on the start line very shortly.

b

5 weeks to go

2009-04-08T12:26:00.004-04:00

To be exact, there is 5 weeks, 3 days, 18 hours, 31 minutes and a few odd seconds until the start of the Cleveland Marathon. I sit here today terribly frustrated and worried as I'm feeling a bit nervous that I may have sustained yet another marathon ending injury. My left leg is again hurting similar to how it did when I ended up with a stress fracture. How could this have happen? I'm sitting here really contemplating that... I picked up a new pair of running shoes as my old Nike's were well past their expiration date. I switched brands to a pair of Mizuno's as the Nikes were too cramped in the toe area as I've been having issues with blisters and bloody toes. The Mizuno's opened up a bit and in the few runs that I have in them so far I can tell a world of difference. Besides that, this past week was actually a rest week so my mileage was way down. I put in a solid 13 mile run on Sunday where my buddy Pat joined me on the later half, but mileage, tempo and terrain (trails) were nothing out of the ordinary for me. I am still sore from that run so I must have over did it and I'm praying that this will all quietly go away tomorrow. Waking up in the morning and limping to let the dog out though brings back some bad memories. I'm going to wait another day before I schedule a doctor's appointment.

brian

Running...ouch

2009-04-01T12:32:00.004-04:00

This past weekend was another long one...18 miles. I wasn't as pumped up about this one for some reason as I was when I had to run 17 miles the previous week..probably because it was only one more mile :)

Thanks to a hint from my wife on the weather forecast, I decided to run the 18 on Saturday in lieu of Sunday. I'm all about avoiding bad weather at all costs when I'm running. It's work enough, why throw lousy weather into it?

This week I decided to focus more on my nutrition during my run so I can figure out how much and what I should be eating during the event. This week I carried along a Gu and some Jelly Belly Sport beans that I picked up from somewhere as well as some Gatorade. My cousin lent me his belt a few weeks ago that has 4 small bottles on it as well as a pouch for carrying some food. Man, I look more geeked out than I normally do but unless I want to run circuits around my house there's just no other way around it. The solution...turn up the tunes on my iPod so I don't hear the bystanders and countless wildlife creatures that pass my way laughing at me. I seemed to do better this week but I'm still having problems getting it to work out right for me. This time my stomach was a bit upset. I think I'm getting a bit too much sugar and in lieu of bringing only Gatorade, I'm going to try to pack half water and half Gatorade to give my stomach a break. I had planned on hitting the drinking fountains down on the Towpath but they're still turned off for the season. Darn freeze/thaw cycle.

I would link to my data now but once again, the Garmin site is down. That site seems to be down every week. If you're a Facebook friend you can see the link there. If not, get on Facebook and become my friend so you can see the data!

What I learned this week is that 18 miles is a heck of a long way. I finished up with the thought of how am I ever going to run another 8.2 miles? It was that difficult for me. I think my long runs are on a much more difficult course than the marathon will be (lots of elevation....you'd see it if I could link to it) so I'm hoping the more difficult training course pays off for me on race day. Also, I had just ridden 40 miles the day before with Tim House which I know affected my legs. My current cycling schedule is that I seem to ride my bike only once every other week. Not nearly enough to keep up with the elderly in their motorized wheel chairs but I'm hoping to make cycling workouts a bit more regular now but with all the irons in the fire I'm not too optimistic. My cycling season starts May 20th...look out!

b

And then there was one....

2009-03-23T12:34:00.005-04:00

This past week I received some bad news from my training partners for the Cleveland Marathon. Both my brother-in-law and cousin went to the doctor to get some leg pains checked out. Several x-rays and MRI’s later, both of their doctors told them that because of the injuries that they sustained, that their marathon ambitions for this spring would most likely out of the question but there was a chance that depending upon their recovery process…maybe they could attempt the ½ marathon. Wow, sounds exactly like my situation last fall. Looks like I’m running Cleveland this year solo. Running is a tough sport. I once read in my running magazine a coach say that you need to be an active runner for at least a year before you attempt training for a marathon. At the time I thought it was a crazy statement to make but now that I’ve been running consistently for a year, I can see the absolute truth in that comment.

This weekend I took several steps into unchartered territory. Previous to Sunday’s run of 17 miles, my longest run was 16 miles about 4 years ago. With having run 15 miles two weekends ago, I felt pretty comfortable that I’d have no issues but based upon the injuries that I’ve been hearing about, I couldn’t help but be a little nervous heading into it. I used the same strategy that I did several weeks ago where I decided to run down from my house down to the towpath trail in the Valley. This allows me to get the majority of the miles on somewhat softer surfaces therefore limiting the overall abuse on my body. Seems to have worked out well because as I sit here today typing this blog, I’m feeling pretty decent. A little sore but nowhere like I would have expected it to have been. Here’s the link to my data.

Overall the run was good. Some things that I learned from my run:
1. Eat something substantial at least a few hours beforehand next time. I had only eaten a bowl of Cheerios about 4 hours before I started running. I had planned on being out on the run much earlier than I thought I would have.
2. Eat something while running. I had packed an energy bar and a Gu with me. I was able to eat about half a bar and I never ate the Gu. I paid for this big time as I was feeling great up to mile 15. After that I started feeling really sick and pretty tired. It took me a long time to recover after my run. A 2 ½ hour effort take a bit more than Cheerios and half an energy bar…oh and some Gatorade, at least I didn’t forget to hydrate during the run.

It took nearly 3 hours before I felt like I could even eat anything and keep it in my system. I know better than this as this isn’t my first experience in endurance sports. Not sure what I was thinking but I’m glad to have paid the price on a training run and not race day.

brian

Pain Is......

2009-03-09T12:22:00.006-04:00

Pain is having to run on the treadmill to get your 15 mile run in for the day. I pride myself for having a high tolerance for things like riding for endless hours on the trainer but yesterday I came to the limits of what I'm physically and mentally able to do. I had been watching the weather all day and there looked to be no end to the downpour that was happening outside of my window. I don't mind running or riding in the rain, but mid 40's and rain is just no fun so running for 2 hours in the rain results in even less fun. Knowing that this was my only day to get that run in (I can't make it up today due to how much time it takes) I gave in and headed to the gym to find a good treadmill. Once there, I found a treadmill and got started. It wouldn't have been so bad but now that football season is over, there's just nothing on to watch. One TV had golf (boring), another was set to HGTV, one was on Fox News (who watches that crap?) and another was set to VH1. So with limited bad options, it was about trying to keep some good tunes flowing through my headphones and do some people watching while not looking like the resident pervert. I think I succeeded in both choices but at the end of two hours I was done. I couldn't have done another 2 minutes on it if I had wanted to. I'm hoping for better weather next weekend.

b

Training Progress

2009-02-09T12:41:00.006-05:00

I missed it. I missed the near 50 degree on Saturday and hence the opportunity to hook up with some teammates to get the first road ride in for the year. I had a pretty full schedule and unfortunately it just didn't turn out in my favor. That's ok, I see it's supposed to be even nicer tomorrow so I think I'll be taking a little bit of PTO and getting a nice long bike ride in. The weekend wasn't a total disaster, I did get some running in. Saturday I was at the gym when they opened the doors at 6:30. I knew with my schedule for the day that if I didn't get it in then, I wouldn't be getting it in at all. On tap was a 6 miler at race pace. For me that means running 6 miles at a 7' 30" tempo. I'm a bit of a sissy and I know through experience that I need a long warm up before I can get my engine firing on all its cylinders. I'll fess up, I ran that first mile at an 8'00" pace before I pushed it up to race pace. I made up for it by running the last mile at a 7'10" pace. Well looking at the math, I guess I didn't quite make it up but came close!

Sunday was another long run day, this one being the long day at a slower tempo. My program showed me needing to complete 11 miles. I was a bit nervous heading into it as the last time I ran a 9 miler I had some pain in my left femur, the same leg that I had the stress fracture in last summer. I noticed that the discomfort was on the outside of my leg and not on the inside where the fracture occured so I figured with close monitoring and taking my increases in mileage pretty conservative, I should be ok. The goal in Cleveland is to just finish the race, nothing more nothing less so there is really little reason for me to push things too hard right now. So w/ the break in the weather, I ventured outside on the roads for the first time of the year. Hard to believe that I've been confined to running indoors for almost 6 weeks but time flies. I don't mind running outside, in fact I enjoy it more but it seems as though few people in the Falls shovel their sidewalks so I'm forced to run in the roads. I'm ok w/ running there if I have to but I prefer the safety of the sidewalk when possible.

One thing that I realized about running outside, it's not as easy as running on the treadmill. I haven't googled any research on this but I have to imagine that it takes more effort to move yourself outside than to keep yourself upright on the treadmill. I'll have to do a little more research on this. The second thing I noticed is how much I missed running outside. I get super warm inside so having the cooler air keep my core temperature down was nice as I was able to run the route in a bit more comfort. It's also nice not to have to watch episodes of Tool Academy or Rock of Love on VH1. The last thing that I noticed is that there are some really weird people living in the Falls. Besides those running during the middle of winter :) I noticed a lady walking down the street carrying a 'boom-box' like she is an extra in Beat Street. Yes, I am that old-school to pull out a pop culture reference like that.

Besides that bit of a break, it was a pretty uneventful run. I am happy to say that I completed the run, I felt good and at no time did I ever feel like I couldn't complete the run. In fact, I felt like I could definitely keep going which is a good sign that my training is coming along nicely. Now if I can just get that cycling training back on schedule. Here's to good weather and the ability to get out of work tomorrow.

Data from my run:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2052134

b

I'm back!

2009-01-28T12:39:00.004-05:00

Miner's Blog is back ladies and Gentleman. Not that it actually went anywhere, I just haven't had that much to blog about recently. For all of my riding friends out there, I'm happy to say that I'm finally, finally back on the bike. I think it's safe to say that I have started training for the 2009 road racing season. Let me just start things off here by saying that my season will once again be different this year. I am registered to run the Cleveland Marathon in May. Therefore a lot of my training time will be dedicated to that event. That being said, I learned my lesson last fall by putting all of my eggs in one basket. I got hurt and couldn't do anything. This year I am dedicated to finding that right balance between running and cycling hoping that somehow each can be supportive of the other. Since I am not a gifted athlete in either discipline, this will most likely result in me being mediocre at best this year. Good news for my competition...bad news for my teammates.

I have assembled my training program for the year and as I can make it more user friendly to look at, I'll post it here online. Currently, it's a bunch of scribble that only I could decipher. In short though, it looks like this, I'll be running four days a week and riding my bike three days a week. I'll have one rest day which will most likely occur on Mondays. Riding time right now consists of me on my trainer at 5:00 am in the basement. Not ideal as I've turned into a non-morning person but I've got to get it in when I can and unfortunately that's it. I've always tried to keep the training as invisible to my family as possible so I don't sacrifice quality family time. With the kids now getting older, that's leaving me to these ungodly hours of the day. I'm hoping this can change a bit once the weather gets out nicer but I'm not holding out much hope.

One thing is for sure, the running can't be sacrificed on the weekends as that's when I need to do my marathon pace runs as well as my long runs. Cycling and unfortunately racing will be determined day by day as I can't blow the prep for the 26.2. in May.

I'm really looking forward to training on the bike which I can honestly say isn't something I was all that excited about even 2 weeks ago. I think this later start will do me a lot of good too. Normally I train hard starting in November but come May, I'm completely spent. Now, I should start to really feel good in May or June, when it really counts and when the weather is pretty decent. I'm hoping that this leads to an overall longer cycling season for me this year. We'll see, only time will tell.

b

Presenting My Best of 2008

2008-12-31T07:59:00.015-05:00

This is something that I started a few years ago and in the midst of having to listen to all the endless countdowns for everything from the greatest Holiday destination of the stars to 2008's best movie soundtracks, I proudly present Miner's Blog.....Best of 2008.

Miles ridden: 2,500.
I'm noticing a disturbing trend here. I'm down 1,000 miles from last year and down 2,000 miles from 2006. It's to be expected though as I literally hung up the bike in mid July after the last Chapel race and besides a few weekdays spent commuting to work, I haven't been on it since. I predict great pain in early 2009 for my body when I try to get back into my 2x20's.

Best 2008 Bicycle Racing Experience:
I really have to think back on this one since it's been 5 moths without racing. I had a lot of good races. Race at the Lakes is always a blast because of the proximity to my house and the usual turnout of teammates. I would say the Chapel Series this year was my favorite experience. Cheap Racing, good eats at the end of the series and a large turnout of Stark Velo mates. It's also the one race of the year where guys seem to race tactically which makes it fun. For me, the added bonus was that I surprisingly went into the series with good fitness so I rode pretty aggressively. I hate being pack fodder and would rather be off the front or off the back from trying.

Best Cycling Purchase:
Once again I laid pretty low on the bike accessories this year. I ended up buying Nicholas a new Haro BMX bike. He had a blast racing out at the Akron Derby Downs this summer. My new bike purchase in 2009 will hopefully be a BMX cruiser for myself. Not sure I'll race it...yet but it'll be fun to go out there and ride on the track. BMX racing is how I got started into this sport as a kid so it's fun to see this path come full circle.

I don't know if I can call this a cycling purchase, but I was able to scrape up enough money to pick up the new Garmin 405. This watch is amazing and it's now clear that I am addicted to numbers, data and just plain information. I never thought of myself as a 'techy' guy as I don't need those kinds of toys, but when it comes to physical exercise and training, I'll get any proven gadget that I can to help me improve myself. Somehow in my own mind that justifies the purchase. I will clearly be a dork on my bike this year with my PowerTap giving me all the power data that I can consume and my Garmin giving me endless information as well. I can't wait to hear the comments from House and Troche.

What I missed in 2008:
Not much time spent on the bikes means not much time spent with my good friends. I miss those times the most. I remember saying this last year but I hope that I can find a better balance between running and cycling.

I also missed the annual trip to Boone, North Carolina. Hopefully I can find a way to resurrect that trip for 2009. There's nothing better than taking a cycling specific trip with friends where the only thing you have to do is to have fun, eat, sleep and ride your bike for three full days.

What I hope to accomplish in '09:
My plan in 2008 was to upgrade to Cat 3 and that obviously didn't happen. Not sure if I can state that as a major goal for me this year or not. It would be cool to be able to upgrade to race with all my teammates who seem to be progressing in the sport but what I've learned in the past 5 years of cycling is that I'm not really as good as you think I am. I know that's hard to believe but I don't seem to have a lot of natural God given talent, it all comes from lots of hard work. With the boys growing up, Elves & More and work, there doesn't seem to be that much time anymore that I can dedicate to my bike. I think I can be content being an average Cat 4 who goes out and rides with his friends for the fun of it and not necessarily because I'm trying to accomplish specific wattage goals on my PowerTap. I'm not giving up racing, look for at the usual places in 2009.

Off the bike, I hope to complete my first marathon in the spring. I will be targeting the Cleveland Marathon (I plan on registering today) in May with the goal of completing it and then I will target the Columbus Marathon in the Fall with my goal of getting a Boston Qualifying Time. Running is something that I'm really enjoying. It's really therapeutic for me and I love the fact that I can go run for an hour and feel completely destroyed as if I'd just been out riding my bike for 4 hours. I also love when I tell people that I went out for an easy 10 mile run.

I also hope to help grow Elves & More this year. Tim and I determined that our volunteer base has outgrown our contributor base. We need to continue to grow both but we need to find more funding. We think we could have easily built 2,000 bikes this year and I'm sure we could have just as easily given away 2,000 bikes. Here's to finding more money in 2009!

Well, that's it for my 2008, time to move onto 2009. I didn't do all that I wanted to with my racing, but sitting here on December 31st, I'm very lucky to be where I'm at. I'm happy and healthy, I have a loving wife and two wonderful boys, I have a great job and I'm a partner in Elves and More. This year, Tim and I along with countless volunteers and contributors, helped make Christmas special for 1,000 kids living in the Mason Park neighborhood in Akron. It's good to be a part of something larger than just yourself. Happy New Year!

brian

The month of December

2008-12-21T06:40:00.015-05:00

December. What a wonderful month. It's just too bad that I historically have to fit 6 months worth of work into 31 days. Between clients trying to get projects out before the end of the year (Bidding is historically better during the winter) and Elves & More I also threw in a new project into the mix this year....a trip to Portland, OR.

I was contacted by NCARB in the middle of the year about being a tester/reviewer for their new architectural registration exams. They originally wanted me to go to Tuscon in August but fortunately I had a conflict that kept me from visiting the desert during the hottest time of the year. When I heard there was a trip to Portland I jumped on it faster than Stephen Baldwin jumps on a really bad script. Portland is an area that I've always wanted to go to. Site unseen it was also a place that I could imagine living in. Now I would get the opportunity to visit at no cost to me! What could be better.

My good friend Pat up in Chicago's brother and sister-in-law just moved to Portland. When Pat found out I was going, magically the trip out west became more than just a business trip, we decided to head out a few days early to hook up w/ his family and try to get some snowboarding in on Mt. Hood. Unfortunately Mother Nature didn't cooperate with us and there was too little snow on Mt. Hood to justify taking the snowboard across the country so we decided to get some hiking in. That turned out to be the best decision ever because besides the lack of snow, they had unseasonably warm weather that was in the 50's and more importantly, it was nothing but sunshine.
On Friday, Pat and I decided to head up to Mount St. Helen's for some hiking. I've traveled with Pat before and whether it's a trip to a mountain or a trip to the grocery store, you are definitely in for an adventure. We made up our way to the last visitors center and got out to make our best effort to find some good trails. Everyone we talked to recommended us taking this one trail up to a neighboring peak to get the best view of Mount St. Helen's. We decided that we had a pretty decent view from where we were standing and decided to make it a quest to try to hike up to the crater. After all, that would be an adventure. The hard thing about Mount St. Helen's is really being able to judge distances. There is absolutely nothing left after the explosion in 1980. No trees, no vegetation, nothing. Nothing that we could use to really judge scale. What looked like a trek of only a few miles would be more like 7 miles one way. The other thing about Mount St. Helen's is that because there is absolutely nothing there to sustain them, there is really little signs of wildlife. I think we saw a few Elk which I was really surprised about and one bird. That combined w/ the total lack of wind there made for a very eerie experience. It was like you were truly hiking on Mars.

After 3 hours, we finally made it to the water fall on the Mountain. Unfortunately it looked like our goal was still about 1 hour further up. We were also at the end of the 'sanctioned' trail which was sort of a joke since the only thing that was there were rocks. Hard to disrupt the environment when there is nothing but rocks to hike over in my mind. It's for that reason that we decided to take the most direct route back to the visitors center.
I should clarify, we only did this because we were getting challenged by losing sunlight (It gets dark at 4:30) and on the hike out when purposefully trying to stay on the trail, we'd lose it because it was really hard to distinguish where the trail was and where it wasn't. It made for a really fun walk back. We got to experience an area that maybe only a handful of people and elk have but it made it difficult because there was some really tough terrain to navigate through.
In the end, we estimate that we saved nearly an hour by taking a bit more direct route. I would imagine that their established trail takes you so far out because of how much water might be running through the valley during the spring melt off of the snow on the mountains. With it being dry we were pretty safe. The only difficult part was having to climb a 30% slope back up to find the trail. It was a blast though and by far one of my best experiences in the mountain. I only wish we had more daylight to have been able to make it up to the top.

Day two in Portland brought a trip to the Columbia River Gorge. This time we went with Brad, Em & their friend from Chicago Evan. I don't want to take the easy road here, but Brad did a good job blogging it so I will refer you to his site as well as some good pictures for the day.

Today is the big Elves & More Delivery day. I can't sleep which is why I started blogging this at 6:00 this morning. I will blog about the delivery here in the next few days as well as hopefully get some pictures posted. All I can say is that although its only going to be in the 20's, there's going to be about 1,000 happy kids in Akron.

b

My thought on Bernie...

2008-11-25T12:17:00.002-05:00

A quote from today's Cyclingnews.com:

Bernhard Kohl is "terribly disappointed" over the two-year doping suspension handed down yesterday by the Austrian Anti-Doping Agency. He called it "the wrong signal and the wrong direction."

No Bernie, the only "wrong signal" and "wrong direction" that was taken was by you when you decided to dope and get away with it. I hope you have a miserable two years off the bike that is filled with endless saddle sores.

b

Life Updates

2008-11-17T12:30:00.006-05:00

Not much cycling...not much running...too much work. That sums up my last three weeks of life. I'm currently designing two building projects, one for Kent State and one for The University of Akron which is taking up too much of my time. Although they are lots of fun it's not leaving a whole lot of time to do anything else I'm afraid.

I was lucky enough to make it out on my bike a few weekends ago when we had the really warm weather. It had been 4 months since my last real ride so time went by fast and before I knew it, it was time to go back home. I haven't been on the bike since. You know it's too long since your last ride when the tire pressure is below 40psi. I'm hoping to get back on the bike a bit more routinely here this week. I hate to do it but it looks like it's back to early morning rides in the basement on my trainer. I normally don't mind trainer rides but I'm not looking forward to it this year.

I have been routinely running 3 times a week at the gym. Those workouts on the treadmill aren't actually too bad. It's a lot like riding indoors, w/ some good tunes on the ipod time goes by quickly. My only issue is that I get so hot that when I'm done running, I'm completely drenched in sweat. Fortunately I'm married and not looking to pick up chicks or else I'd be labeled as that weird sweaty guy! Who knows, I probably am already labeled that but I guess I don't care. What I don't know won't hurt me, right? My plan is to continue running 3 to 4 days per week, with one of those runs being a long one between 7-10 miles. Looking ahead to the Cleveland Marathon, I really have to be in full blown training mode in mid January so I don't want to lose any fitness or gain any excess weight that tends to happen to me at this time of the year.

Besides that it's Elves & More time. I'll be doing a lot more blogging about how that effort is going but in the meantime I'll say that the volunteer dates have all been set and registration is now open. Check it out.

b

Cycling vs. Running

2008-10-23T12:29:00.005-04:00

Now that my big goal is over for the season, it's time for me to reflect a bit on the physical impact on my body when making the switch to running from cycling. In no particular order, here is a list of ailments that I have had in both disciplines this year:

Cycling:

Occasional razor burn.
Weird tan lines which are hard to explain while on vacation at the beach.

Running:

Bloody nipples (learned that Bag Balm works well here on runs up to 15 miles in length. Anything over that and use band aids.
Rubbed raw certain, sensitive male parts. Once again, Bag Balm works well here. This was a tough lesson to learn....
Blood blisters on ends of toes.
Lost toe nails
Stress Fracture to my left femur...the largest bone in the body.
Strained lower back

Seems pretty apparent that running just plain sucks....somehow I'm hooked and already looking forward to training for the next one.

Columbus 1/2 Marathon

2008-10-21T12:07:00.022-04:00

Columbus...what can I say? It is a city that as an Architect I have had a love/hate relationship with for years. There are some examples of amazing architecture, incredible historical neighborhoods and parks but Columbus is also a city that has expanded with reckless growth and is the epitome of Urban Sprawl. No need to conserve as long as there's another corn field or forest to destroy. My personal feelings aside, this past weekend might have been one of my greatest experiences in our State's capital (w/ the exception of being married there).

My wife's family lives in the city and typically we stay with them on weekend trips in. This time, we decided to get a hotel room downtown. Not knowing what to expect in terms of available parking and traffic in, I wanted to minimize any anxiety and sleeping a few blocks from the start line seemed like the best way to do it. This also gave us the opportunity to leave the kids with my in-laws which really made both of their days. The hotel was awesome, with our room being on the 19th floor it really gave me a greater perspective of the city which I can now come to appreciate more. The hotel was also connected to the new convention center downtown which made getting to the expo and my race packet a lot easier. That also gave us the opportunity to see all the other events happening there like some big cheer leading competition. Before you go crazy thinking thoughts about hot college chicks or high school girls, it seemed like this was cheer leading for the pre-tween girls. I swear that I even saw girls there younger than Nicholas who is only 5 years old. With all the criticism the Ramsey's received about how they exploited their daughter JonBenet, it seems like some parents just haven't learned the lesson yet...but once again I digress.

Saturday night was spent hooking up with my family who came into town to watch the race and heading out to dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. After being disowned by my parents, it was nice to have the support of my grandparents, Aunt and Uncle and of course my wife's family. They weren't there just to see me but my cousin Tim and brother-in-law Brian was also running with me. Tim's an experienced runner and is currently the boys' cross-country coach for Ashland High School. If I have a question about running, he's one of the two people I go to. The other is a friend named James Miller who was also there this weekend taking a stab at a Boston Qualifying time.

The Sunday morning wake up came early but fortunately with the short distance to the start line, I was able to sneak in a few extra minutes of sleep. Heading out to the start line at 6:30 I immediately noticed that it was cold. The temperature was mid-30's...ouch that's cold. Coming back from dinner the previous night I rethought my clothing strategy and decided to go with a long sleeve shirt, gloves and shorts. I also had on a sleeveless Under Armor on which made for a nice base layer. I'm really glad I made the switch to long sleeves because during my warm up/stretching and staging for the start, I couldn't keep myself from shivering. I could only imagine how much worse it might have been in short sleeves. There is nothing worse than having chattering teeth on the start line.

My strategy going into the race was to just have fun and to try to hold an 8'/mile pace. I haven't run longer than 9 miles in over 3 months so I wasn't sure how my body was going to react. Going out of the start we hooked up with the 8'/mile pace group. Within the first mile, Tim and I decided to pick it up a bit to get in front of them and if necessary, we could ease up and rejoin them if we weren't feeling great. Mile after mile, we pulled further and further away from them to the point that if they caught us, it was because we would be running backwards to rejoin them. It was obvious that Tim and I were both feeling good and that we would average much better than an 8'/mile tempo over the 13.1 miles. A new thing for me was to try to drink while running. Normally I carry a water bottle so it's not a big issue but drinking out of a cup is a bit more difficult. I was able to get a few sips down but that always came with Gatorade shots up my nose. I need to perfect drinking I guess.

I lost contact with Tim around the 9 mile mark. We caught up to the 3:20 pace group which had a lot of runners and Tim made it through but I didn't. Here's where I might have taken it too conservative. I was still feeling good but being in uncharted territory here, I played it conservative. I decided to hang with this new pace group and then if still feeling good, pick it up by mile 11 and finish as quick as I could. That's what I did but in hindsight I wish I would have made the effort to try to regroup with Tim and finish even faster. As it turns out, I beat the secret goal that I had set for myself. I was hoping to come in around 1:40. I finished the race in 1:38:56. That gives me an average pace of 7'34"/mile pace.

A lot of people have asked me about how the race went. My response is this...in all of the competitive events that I've ever participated in, this by far ranks as one of the best experiences, if not the best. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's being a part of nearly 12,000 runners trying to accomplish the same goal which is to finish. Maybe it was miles and miles of spectators along the sides of the road cheering you on. I don't think there was ever a stretch of road where there wasn't at least one person watching. Normally when I run I notice every mile that goes by. This event I remember hitting the 10 mile mark and being surprised that I had already gotten that far. The effort just seemed that easy.

Here are some stats from the race:

Mile 1 – 7:59
Mile 2 – 7:41
Mile 3 – 7:26
Mile 4 – 7:37
Mile 5 – 7:25
Mile 6 – 7:22
Mile 7 – 7:29
Mile 8 – 7:34
Mile 9 – 7:25
Mile 10 – 7:17
Mile 11 – 7:28
Mile 12 – 7:39
Mile 13 – 7:20
.1 – 1:07
Total – 1:38.56

bib number: 3034
age: 35
gender:M
location: Cuyahoga Falls, OH
overall place: 354 out of 5290
division place: 3 out of 160
gender place: 279 out of 2230
time: 1:38:56
pace: 7:34
10k: 47:09

brian

2 days to Columbus

2008-10-17T07:56:00.008-04:00

Here I am, sitting comfortably at my computer 2 days before the Columbus Marathon. Because of an unfortunate injury which I've already discussed in previous posts, I'll only be able to complete the 1/2 marathon this year. I have mixed emotions about it. On one side, I'm only running 13.1 and when I'm done my body most likely won't feel trashed with the shorter distance. On the other side, I had set some really lofty goals like completing my first marathon while I was 35 and doing it in a Boston Qualifying time (3:15). Training for this event was unlike anything that I've ever done before. Training for a bike race is different. Sure, you spend lots of time training hard just like you do for running, but if you get hurt, sick, get unlucky or have a bad day on the bike, there's another bike race somewhere the next weekend that you can travel quickly to and have another go at it. With running, it's not like that (or at least it just doesn't appear to me that way). With marathon training, I focused all of my attention and energy to running to make sure my body was ready for the big goals that I set. I dedicated almost 5 months of my life to a singular event. Running is so physically demanding that racing the next weekend if something happens to go wrong most likely just isn't an option. Unfortunately with the fracture, I can't take a stab at even completing the marathon this year. I'm currently only up to running 9 miles at a time and trying to take a stab at 26 is just asking for another injury. That's just something that I can't risk. The 5 months of training for Columbus could be looked at as completely down the drain. Those were 5 months that I could have been on my bike riding with good friends that I haven't been able to keep in touch with because we don't share that commonality at the moment. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I'm still in decent shape, just not cycling shape. Will I take a stab at another marathon? Absolutely. Just not sure when and what my plan is for 2009 yet. I still have 13.1 more miles to go this Sunday before I think about next year.

brian

Akron Roadrunner Marathon

2008-10-01T12:23:00.010-04:00

Last Saturday was the Akron Road Runner Marathon. This is the sixth year of existence for the race and the 4th time that I've had the opportunity to run a relay portion of it. I have to say that each and every year it just gets better and better. Earlier in the year the strategy for this event was to fun the final 12k leg with some kick. I had delusions of running 6' mile pace. Obviously that all changed a few months back. With me on the right road to recovery, I opted to run the shorter 10k. In hindsight, this was a great move because I am now only able to run a slow 6 miles without any discomfort in my femur. This year was the first year that I was also able to run the opening leg of the event. This was important for me for two reasons. Firstly, it was great practice for Columbus to get started in a big mass so I could see how I needed to maneuver around people to hit my goal pace. Secondly, it allowed me to finish in plenty of time to see Nicholas and Will run in the Kids Fun Run later in the morning. My strategy for today was to finish somewhere close to 45'. My normal 10k pace is 43' but with recovery, I knew I would have to sacrifice some time so I didn't injure myself anymore. The plan for the day was to hook up with a friend of mine named James who is an avid runner and seasoned marathoner. He was running the 1/2 marathon (in preparation for Columbus) and was hoping to run a 7'10" pace, a touch faster than what I thought I could do but idealistically right about where I wanted to finish up. Running that morning felt great. There's something about the adrenaline and the excitement of the day that really gets you going. It was probably that quicker than goal pace that helped tire me but just after 5k of running, I began to lose touch with James as I just couldn't hang at that pace. Seems like I've lost a bit of that high end speed. As I was beginning to suffer more and more , I noticed that we were running right by the Summit Lake neighborhood that we delivered to last winter with Elves & More. The thoughts of that day pulled me away from the pain and the doubts that I was beginning to suffer. I have to imagine that running which is really a solitary sport is probably a lot like Time Trialing on a bicycle. When you're by yourself, I'm not sure if the bigger battle is between you and the road or you and your mind. Ultimately I won because I didn't stop, but I wonder if I slowed down at all because of the mental debates that I was holding with myself.

I'm happy to say that I finished the 10k if 45'24". That's where I realistically figured I would end up being, but deep down inside, I was hoping that I could have pulled out a much faster time. This was a good test for me for Columbus. From this experience I learned that the marathon is for sure out of the question. I realistic goal will be now to complete the half-marathon in Columbus. Not sure what my goals other than completing relatively pain free will be yet but I'll let you know.

Follow up from the 40'

2008-09-17T12:25:00.004-04:00

I'm a bit late in getting the latest report out but here it is, after running for 40 minutes at a moderate tempo, my leg is doing well. This gives me some confidence with just under two weeks until the Akron Marathon that I will be able to finish the 10k test there with a somewhat reasonable time. In fact, I've already run twice for that duration and I'll be back out there early tomorrow morning to test it again, this time a bit faster perhaps.

New Milestone

2008-09-13T19:39:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I'm taking a big step, or to put it more accurately, about 1200 more big steps. I'm going to attempt my first 40 minute run since recovering from the stress fracture. This will be my longest run in almost 7 weeks. 40 minutes should put me somewhere over 5 miles for the day. I'm a bit nervous because I really don't know how my leg is going to feel. Running at 30 minutes this past week my leg has felt great but I just don't know how I'll respond to adding 10 additional minutes. I need to make this step and get past the mental fear if I want to make it to the next goal, which is running the opening 10k leg in two weeks at the Akron Marathon. I have a goal in that race of finishing somewhere around 45 minutes. That will be the slowest that I've ever run it but given the fact that I'm still in recovery mode, 45 minutes will be a great accomplishment. I'll post something tomorrow on how it went. That's saying that I actually make it out with all of this rain that we're having.

b

Getting Back into the Groove.

2008-09-03T08:02:00.008-04:00

A few posts ago, I talked about the5/5/5/ plan that my doctor put me on to allow my femur to fully heal. He also prescribed several weeks of physical therapy so I can work on some deficiencies that may have led to the fracture. I only use the word 'may' because unfortunately determining the exact cause that led to the injury is somewhat hard to determine and in all actuality, it was probably caused by several factors. What I've learned in PT is that I have a weak core and running really utilizes those muscle groups. There was a point in time where I used to weight train but that was prior to having kids and thinking back, I'm not sure that other than performing a few crunches here and there that I really ever worked on core muscle development. I'd say the last time I truly did core exercises was when I was in the Army and we were getting 'smoked' by our drill sergeants for doing something wrong.

This past weekend was the end of the 5/5/5 plan and I was free to start running again, well sort of. With the longest run being only about 2 miles long and at a 10 minute/mile pace, I was a long ways away from the previous distances and times I had been clocking in prior to the injury and I was even further away from being really ready to run in Columbus in now less than 8 weeks. Sunday I decided to push the distance a bit but keep the tempo right around the 9'30" tempo. Instead of 20 minutes, I'd try running for 30 minutes. The run felt great and I knew I had begun to slowly increase the tempo up a bit but I was feeling good so what could it hurt, right? So how did my leg feel? Well, unfortunately I never feel the pain during the run so it's hard to know whether I'm pushing it too far until the next day. Monday morning I woke up and felt the dull pain where the fracture occurred. It didn't hurt, I wasn't limping around but my leg didn't feel like it did the day before so I know that I pushed it too far too soon. Time to throttle the training back down again and give my leg a bit more time to heal. My PT tells me that broken bones typically take 6 to 8 weeks to heal. I'm now at 5 weeks since I last truly ran on it so I should be getting close to moving past this.

This morning I did another run. This time I went back to the last phase of the 5/5/5 plan and I ran for only 20 minutes around the 9 minute/mile pace. Again, I'll have to wait to know for sure but I'm hoping that I can push it just a bit more this weekend. Fortunately, I have a follow-up visit with my Doctor and Physical Therapist this Friday so I'll be able to get some advice on where to go from here. It's frustrating, without a doubt.

b

Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble...

2008-08-19T13:10:00.002-04:00

Last night was my first attempt at a 'jog' since determining that I have a stress fracture in my left femur. After a new shoe purchase at my local running shop called Second Sole, I headed up to the local towpath trail to find softer running surfaces than the concrete sidewalks in my neighborhood. As in cycling where my philosophy has been why drive to start a bike ride when I can bike from my house, I've always tried to run directly directly from my front doorstep. This not only saves a few dollars in gas but helps minimize how long I'll be away from the house; and ultimately how long I'll be away from the kids and my wife.
With my leg finally feeling good and the limp in my step gone, I wanted to play it ultra safe and run somewhere a little more forgiving concrete so the towpath would have to do as I don't have a gym membership to find a treadmill. Pulling into the closest trail head at Sand Run, I was reminded of how busy this place is. If running ultra slow in privacy was my goal, I wouldn't find it here. Sand Run is to running what Bally's is to working out. Essentially if you're into being seen or seeing others, this is where typically go. Don't get me wrong, it's a great place to run but there's more to look at than the trees and wildlife. I didn't want to be seen but it was the closest place so I'd have to suck it up, after all, Doctor's orders was jogging for no more than 20 minutes so how bad could it really be?

Bad enough to be passed by every runner, walker and three legged dogs in the area. The only people who didn't pass me were the 80+ year old crowd, but that's probably because they were home getting ready for bed. It was so tough to not try to pick it up to save some dignity but better to be safe than sorry I guess. Truly a humbling experience. I think I will make a T-Shirt the next time that says "Fractured Femur on Board" or something.

brian

Running Pains Part II

2008-08-12T16:48:00.010-04:00

As an endurance athlete (if I can call myself that), you become somewhat accustomed to at least some level of discomfort when training for your specific sport. Running definitely falls into this category. At first, there's nothing pleasurable about running and typically every step hurts so when I started feeling some pain in my thigh about a month ago I figured it was just the next level of discomfort that I needed to work through to get to that next great plateau. After a few weeks I noticed this pain wasn't going away but it certainly wasn't getting any worse so I figured I'd do my best to run through it in hopes that it would eventually disappear. The trick for me was to run the first quarter mile or so (usually with a limp) in pain but know that after those first few minutes the pain would go away and I'd be back to running my normal stride pain free. After the run, I'd feel better than ever before and think that I was finally through this hurdle but like that one loud neighbor that everyone has, it would always return the next day. Two weeks ago when I was out running one of my 8 mile runs, the pain didn't go away. In fact it got worse during the run. It was at this point that I knew something was wrong. It was also at this point that I could no longer hide the pain from my wife as I came hobbling through the door. Atypical for me and probably most males in the continental United States, I made a doctor's appointment the very next day to rule anything serious out. To shorten the story, once I worked my way through my primary physician I was finally able to get to see a sports medicine professional. There I had some x-rays done which showed nothing. Yes!!! No stress fractures so it's something muscular and I can keep my running hopes alive. Not so fast, the doctor wanted to perform a Bone Scan just to rule out any fractures that might be too small to show up on the usual x-ray. I had the test this past Friday and I'm happy to say that I'm no longer radioactive, but I did find out some bad news in the process. My worst fear came true, actually my two worst fears came true. The first one is that I do indeed have a stress fracture in my left femur. The second fear that came true is that unlike what I was telling everyone in grade school, the scan shows that I am not big boned but in fact, I am just fat. So much for being able to use that excuse!

In all seriousness, finding this out is horrible news. It completely redefines what I'm going to be doing for Columbus and in fact there is even a big question mark on whether I can even compete in Columbus which happens in only a few months time from now. My physician who is an avid marathoner who feels that there is still a chance I can do it, but I will have to throw out all ambitions of running a fast time and only focus on trying to finish it. As he said, I might have to settle for walking a portion of the race. Walking is a long ways away from my Boston qualifying time, but I guess I should be happy that it's nothing more serious than it is.

So what's my next step to recovery? Well, take it slow day by day and manage my recovery by what level of discomfort that I'm having. I will do what my doctor calls the 5/5/5 plan. For the first five days, starting today I will walk briskly every other day for 20 minutes. If I feel any pain doing this, then I'll stop and rest more. On the days that I'm not walking, I'll do some cross training like riding my bike or doing an elliptical machine or something at the gym. During the next 5 day cycle, I'll start to jog for 20 minutes. This jog will be at a slightly faster pace than my walk. Not fast enough to get cardio benefit out of it, only fast enough so that my left leg is striking the ground with all my body weight on it without the support of my right leg. Again, I will cross-train like crazy at this point to keep my cardio up high. If I feel any pain, I go back half a phase and start over. It's my hope that I don't feel any pain. The last cycle of 5 days will be running for 20 minutes. Again, not running for cardio but running a bit quicker than before so I get more repetitions on my left leg during the 20 minute time period. These will be run at about 2 minutes slower than my normal running pace, so for me I will target about a 9 minute/mile tempo. Most likely, I will even try to run these a bit slower like around 10 minute mile tempo just to take it a bit easier. If after all of this, I'm still pain free, I'm good to go on training, only I will take the schedule much, much, much easier at this point as I will be only running to condition myself for long runs and not necessarily for fast running. Here's to the hope that I can go pain free!

brian

Running Data!

2008-07-21T12:37:00.016-04:00

I've admitted several times before in previous posts that I'm addicted to data. I don't get the shakes or cold sweats if I'm not looking at charts and graphs showing me my daily training, but knowing that there is relatively cheap technology out there that I can use to help me train more efficiently and effectively keeps me saving my pennies. When I started running, I stepped back in time in terms of training aids. The best that I had was my old Timex Iron Man watch that was replaced after the previous one got ruined while swimming in Italy (Good story here about "Naked Lady Cove"). As for heart rate, pacing, mileage, I was taking a non-approach to training and just winging it which after being so heavily involved in power based training on the bike felt very foreign.
I needed to look for something to help me out. As with the bike, there were also lots of options here, watches, heart rate monitors, GPS Systems, etc. I quickly narrowed in on the GPS but decided that for the high dollars that these systems cost, I couldn't justify it....yet. It wasn't until I visited my local running shop Second Sole that I learned about another option, the Nike+ Sportband. For a moderate $65, here is a device that is supposed to tell me current time, duration, pacing, mileage and calories burned. Everything that I was looking for and for the right price. So how did it go? Test run number one was 13 miles long. It said I ran 2.5 miles. Test run two was a 6 miler, ended up recording only about a mile and a half. I started keeping an eye on it and noticed that it was recording my pace at accurately one second and then in the next second it would be something crazy like a 45 minute/mile pace. Frustrating to say the least. I ended up taking it back and exchanging it for another, hoping better results would come on the second one. How did this one do? Yesterday was a 14 miler....and it recorded 14 miles. I'm hopeful that this thing is close but I still plan on taking it to the track this week to make sure its calibrated right on. So what did I learn from this technology? Well primarily that my pacing is way off. On my long runs I'm trying to run about an 8minute, 30 second pace. I ended up averaging 8'17 seconds overall but that for over half the run I was running at 7 minute pace. I'm happy that I've now got something to help me out and I'm glad I've still got some time to get the feel of running all dialed in. It's a bit week in terms of graphics but here's what the data looks like from my run. (Note that all the dots represent the miles. On the website where my data is listed, each of those dots are active points that give me info for the run at that point in time. Helpful there, not so much here :)

b

Miner's blog, jr?

2008-07-17T12:49:00.008-04:00

Last night Nicholas started racing his bike. This process started a few months ago when he asked me when he could start racing like me. After I explained to him that he was still a bit too young at only 5 years old to start road racing, I let him know that there was an alternative and that was BMX racing. He seemed interested in seeing what it was all about so we ventured over to the Akron Derby Downs BMX track. His good friend Gavin Parr has been out there a few times so it was a good opportunity to ease any fears that he might have about the sport. Wanting to make sure that he really wanted to do this, I took him out there multiple times, just so he could get a good feel for what he would have to do to make it from the start line to the finish line, and to make sure he was sure he wanted to do it. Sometimes with kids, their opinions can change fairly quickly on what they want so before we made any financial commitment on equipment, race license, etc., I wanted to make sure he was serious. Tuesday night when I asked him if he wanted to go to swim lessons or race his bike, it was a quick decision...race his bike.

Once we got to the track last night, we quickly got Nicholas registered and almost immediately found that the volunteer staff out there is absolutely amazing. It was really cool to see how everyone there was so helpful to Nicholas and I. He quickly found a mentor named Greg who had two sons also racing who took him up to the start gate and helped him around the track several times until he could get the hang of it. I'm really thankful for him being there because it took a few turns before he realized how much speed he really needed to have to get up and over those big ramps. I always thought Nicholas was a big kid until I saw him out there. He looked as small as the day he was born. What impressed me most about Greg and the other volunteers out there who make the races possible, is that they love the kids and the sport, and are willing to do whatever they can to make sure you have a positive experience. Not sure I've seen that kind of expression of interest in any of the local races that I've competed in. Not saying I've had bad experiences because for the most part, they have all been positive. I'm just saying it was totally different.

Nicholas did well, I can't really give a good race report and let's face it, you probably don't want to hear one from me. I was just happy to see that at the end of the evening he was thrilled with the trophy that he won (he slept with it) and that he's anxious to go back again.

brian

Back at the Races!

2008-07-14T20:10:00.004-04:00

When rolling across the finish line at the Race for Alex almost a month and a half ago, I had hoped that between my running and my commuting to work via bike, that I'd have some type of fitness to participate in the annual Chapel race. I always look forward to this race as it's close, cheap and lots of fun. With being off the bike for so long I was also looking forward to seeing and racing with all my teammates again. Rolling up to the start line, I really had no expectations for the day but to hopefully stay with the pack. I thought if I could do that, then it would be a successful day. Quickly into the day, Tim pushed the pace to try to get off the front. He didn't have much luck but than Marshall came up and tried the same thing. I figured that I'd give it a shot as well. We had the field packed so I thought I could at least make the race difficult for as long as possible, even if that meant my day would be early. As it turns out, I'd be good for a few more attacks along the way and surprisingly, I felt as good as I ever have on the bike. They say rest is important, apparently I need 6 weeks! In all honesty, I never felt good to go solo for the distance, but if any of the breaks that I was trying to initiate would have been successful in working, I think I could have made it stick. With 5 to go, I knew it was most likely heading down to the bunch kick so I restrained myself for the finish. With a half lap to go, I let it all go and attacked one last time on the backside of the church. I went through the final few turns still up in front but not with enough power to hold on. I ended up rolling in for 7th place for the night but with the satisfaction of making the race difficult and hopefully setting up some success for my other teammates. I'm looking forward to racing again this week.

Unfortunately I'm having some issues with my PowerTap computer as Cycling Peaks had some issues saving the data for me. From a quick glance, I remember seeing a normalized power of 305 W for the approx. 39 minute effort. This really surprised me that my power output would still be that high after so many weeks at sub-threshold riding. Maybe there really is something to this rest thing :)

b

Commuting Woes

2008-07-03T13:56:00.003-04:00

I suffered what I'm sure will be the first of many flat tires on my commute home yesterday. I was riding the cross bike with the knobbies on it but I guess those do little to protect me from what seems like endless miles of broken glass and other sh%t along the streets of Akron. It really is amazing to see how much trash is along the sides of the road here. Maybe that's part of Akron's problem, if the citizens who live and work here can't have enough respect for their own neighborhoods to at least keep their sidewalks clean, what hope is there to attract new talent, businesses, etc. into the area; guess that's just my philosophical self talking. Just call me Bri-istotle. Is there something really fun about smashing glass bottles? I'm just not sure that I really get it.

One thing that I've learned is that 700c x 32 cyclocross tubes aren't successfully replaced with tubes that are for 23mm road bike wheels. I rode the rest of the ride along the towpath home really slow as I couldn't put enough volume of CO2 into the tube to fully inflate the tire. Lesson learned I guess. Better hit the bike shop this weekend for some new tubies and patch kit.

I'm looking forward to the long weekend which will hopefully allow me to get some bike riding in. I've got to take it easy because I don't want to compromise my running schedule but I'm hoping to get at least a bit of feeling back in my legs so I can race in the upcoming Chapel Series. I don't have any expectations of even staying in the field until the finish, but for those of us who drop off the back of the main field....I will so kick your butt for the sprint for 25th place! :)

b

Running Pains

2008-06-30T12:29:00.004-04:00

Ouch. I really forgot how hard running is. I've been running 4-5 days a week now, fairly consistently for the past month, mostly consisting of smaller runs around 3 miles long in the first few weeks and then progressing to 5 mile runs the past few weeks. I'm finally starting to feel good (if that's even possible while running) when I'm running so I don't feel completely thrashed by the end of my workout until I started doing big miles. For me, a big run used to be anything longer than running from my living room to my kitchen for some more snacks. Now, I've had to redefine it a bit to say anything in miles that was two digits long. Two weeks ago I did my first big run of 10 miles. This wasn't my first attempt at running big distances. I've done big miles while in the army and a few years ago, I was routinely running 15 milers for the fun of it. For some reason, who knows, maybe its the age but this 10 miler affected me big time. While running, I felt awesome. The kind of feeling that I knew I still had a lot more left in the tank and I could definitely keep going. Fortunately I was sensible and wrapped it up. It wasn't until I got back in the house and cleaned up that I noticed a pain in the ball of my left foot. Ouch, hurts to walk on it. A few days go by and I'm able to do some of my 5 mile runs through the week without issue but on yesterdays 11 mile run I'm feeling it now worse than ever. Funny because I was pretty conscious about it during the run and I never had any issues with pain. I'm hoping this is one of those things that I just have to get through and that there are no serious issues. To be safe, I'm going to head down to the local running store tonight and have them take a look at my running shoes. Better to get this solved now. I can't have anything compromising Columbus.

Sorry, no data but I am trying to convince my wife that I need to Purchase the Garmin 405 watch. Man, if there's one thing that I've learned, it's that I'm addicted to data.

b

Miner goes Commuting!

2008-06-23T12:48:00.008-04:00

Commuting to work via bike is something that I’ve wanted to do for the past few years. The excuses for not doing it always came easy and I never seemed to take it too seriously until this year. Inspired by my buddy Pat up in Chicago who commutes to work via bike every day of the year and along with the outrageously high gas prices I decided it was time to get serious about starting. As I just mentioned, it was the excuses that kept me from doing it previously. Specifically some of these were what do I do about my work clothes since I have to dress professionally here at work, what do I do about a shower and what do I do if I need a car to drive out to a clients project site? I realized that my whole problem was that I thought commuting to work meant I had to do it every day of the work week. Once I got it into my mind that this wasn’t true, two out of the three issues above simply went away. What I do is that on the days that I have to drive into work (if I need to drive to a project site, pick up kids after work, etc.) I bring my clothes that I’ll need for the days that I plan on riding and just leave them in my office, hence keeping everything looking wrinkle free! As for the shower, my building does have a shower facility here in the building should I need it. I say should because so far I haven’t. My commute is just under 5 miles and what I find is that even with some of the small climbs that I have, I’m just getting warmed up by the time that I get here. So, showering before I leave the house is still working out well. This might change once the temperature gets a bit warmer and muggier, but I’ll deal with that issue when it arises.

Commuting to work also helps me feel connected to riding. Having for the most part stopped seriously training so I can better prepare for the Columbus Marathon, riding in three days a week at least keeps me feeling like I’m not completely throwing away all that fitness I gained through the winter and spring. In the back of my mind I’m really hoping that these commutes along with the occasional team training ride can keep me somewhat in shape (along with tons of running) so I can get back on the bike just in time for cyclocross season. As for my daily commute, pretty straight forward really. I’m treated each morning with an amazing view of the City as I roll behind Saint Thomas Hospital and down Howard Street. I’ve also found this amazing street that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise called Bluff. It’s got some amazing cobbles to it, and I mean true cobbles, not just brick pavers. Check out the picture below. If it was located in a more convenient location, it would be awesome to try to race up.

Until next time,

b

Columbus Marathon, here I come..

2008-06-05T12:17:00.013-04:00

Well, it's official. I'm now registered for this years Columbus Marathon which will be held on October 19th.

I had an opportunity to run a 4 miler Tuesday night in the midst of a downpour which unfortunately was my first real run for the year. Funny how not one person yelled at me from their car, threw things at me or came dangerously close to hitting me while I was out there. The first mile I felt lousy; mile 2 and mile 3 I felt awesome and then mile 4 I felt lousy again. It's a long way to get to 26.2

b

Race for Alex

2008-06-02T12:26:00.009-04:00

When I made the decision to run the Columbus Marathon this fall (and be competitive in it), I knew I would have to cut short my cycling season to achieve some of the goals that I set. I barely seem to have time to train for one sport, let alone try to train for two so something has to go and it won't be family or work so I guess that means I'm voluntarily letting my CTL drop a bit until later this fall. With the shortened season, I picked the Race for Alex as the event to say goodbye to my 2007 season. I raced it last year and remember having a lot of fun on a course that really suited me.

Sunday morning I lined up in a field of 54 riders in the Cat 4/Cat 5 field, by far the largest group that I've raced with in awhile. Joining me from Stark Velo was: Matt Turi, Tim House, Chris Smith, Don Bunker, Greg Banic, Bill Fletcher, Tim Graichen and James Votaw. With such a large group of teammates racing, we should hopefully be able to do something productive for the day as we certainly had the numbers. With such a large group and a strict yellow-line rule, moving up was going to be difficult so I did my best to get myself in the top 20 places as we rolled out of the parking lot. Being even this far back would prove to be disaster for the day. It was nice from the sense that I always had someone to block the strong winds, but difficult to move up into any better position. I always like to keep an eye on the front and make moves when necessary. Sitting pinched in the middle of the field sort of makes that logic impractical. A prime example came when Turi took a solo flier off the front on lap 2. I was doing my best to move up in the field to the front to try and slow things down but it was impossible. There were only three ways to do it. Flagrantly breaking the yellow-line rule, take my luck riding in the gutter or be stupid/dangerous and try to squeeze through riders in the field. I decided I'd try to ride near the gutter in hopes that enough openings would happen on that side that I could jump into and leap frog my way to the front. Unfortunately, after almost a lap of Matt being out front, I was nowhere closer to helping him out and he was quickly moving back to us.

The race was fast but I was able to notice some things along the way. Firstly that there was a rider who was walking back to the start line (opposite race direction) who was pushing his bike with a severed handlebar. Wow, wonder how that happened and where. Two, the railroad tracks on the course are absolutely horrible. I still need to take a good look at my Zipps but on one outing over them; I heard a nasty crack when I rolled over it. Hopefully, it was the guy next to me and not my fine 303 hoops.

Starting lap 4 and I'm finally feeling better. It had been a few days since I had an opportunity to ride and I needed a few minutes of high intensity to bring my legs back. I knew with only two laps to go, there was no way I was going to get dropped and hopefully I could find a way up front to get competitive in this thing. After all, it was my last race. So we roll over the track on lap 4. Guys do like they always do on every lap and try to bunny hop them at 35 mph. Something happens and all of a sudden there are bodies and bikes everywhere. I slam on my breaks hoping nobody behind me crashes into me and I safely navigate my way through the carnage that lies on the street. The field moves away from me at that point. I pretty much stop to see if anyone who was involved in it is really hurt or not. I notice that there was a follow vehicle that is there and decided that I can try to catch the main field which at this point was probably down to 25 guys or so.

Well, the wind was too strong and/or they were too fast so I never could catch them. Rode the last lap and a half by myself but nobody ever caught me...for whatever that's worth. Riding solo did give me an opportunity to reflect on that crash though. My thought was that the Race for Alex is a race that was setup to benefit a recovering spinal cord injured racer. Why is this race trying to setup future injuries? I know that may seem a bit harsh and you can call me a p#%ssy if you like but let's face it, bike racing is inherently dangerous as it is even on the safest of courses. Throw in things like crappy, rough railroad crossings and the risk level just gets raised that much higher. I haven't found too many races that I feel are worth the risk of racing and boycott from (Medina Twin Sizzler is the only one right now), but I think I'm going to have to add the Race for Alex to the list that I'm going to avoid from now on. I hate to say it since MVC is a good club, it has great organization and Bob seems to have a lot of passion for this race, but there are better things I can be doing with my time than risking my life.

So, not the way that I wanted to wrap up my season, but I can’t control those things. If I could, I would have won every race that I’ve ever entered. I look forward to really getting into running here this week. I’m hoping to keep riding, at least with commuting to work and maybe the occasional team ride in hopes that I can still race the Chapel Series. I need something to blog after all…..

b

Here's the data for the day's race:

Race for Alex:
Duration: 58:14
Work: 877 kJ
TSS: 98.2 (intensity factor 1.006)
Norm Power: 302
VI: 1.2
Distance: 21.978 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1057 251 watts
Heart rate: 94 205 169 bpm
Cadence: 31 141 97 rpm
Speed: 2.6 35.8 22.6 mph
Pace 1:41 22:59 2:39 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 345 79 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1165 220 lb-in

I knew I always looked sexy in this kit!

2008-05-12T16:24:00.020-04:00

This past weekend, Jen and I took our annual trip up to Chicago to visit our good friends Pat and Kristy. I hate missing a good local race like RATL but the opportunity to head up to Chi-town without the kids just couldn't be passed up; besides, Pat is a great rider and I was sure we'd get some decent riding in while there.

The weather forecast for the weekend showed Saturday as the best opportunity to get some miles in. What Chicago lacks in elevation (i.e. hills) they more than make up for in wind. The wind was something like 25 mph sustained with probably 30-35mph wind gusts, definitely a lot of work to keep any type of momentum going while heading north along the lake. Fortunately we'd be heading into the wind in the beginning and then taking advantage of mother nature on the return trip home. The plan for this ride was to leave from their place down in Hyde Park and then work our way over via the city streets to the bike path along the lake shore. This isn't the first time I've ridden up in Chicago and I knew what to expect while riding on the roads with Pat. Everyone has probably seen the video of the bike messenger races in NYC and getting around here in Chicago isn't much different. It's a lot different than riding here in Northeast Ohio but after experiencing this a few times I now really love the rush of adrenaline that flows when you're dodging through moving traffic! Who knows, maybe I'll give up my gig as an architect and become a bike messenger!

OK, I'm not really going to blog every twist and turn of the bike path for you. I would just say that first of all, if you haven't been to Chicago, go. This is by far my favorite American City and I could feasibly see the Miner's relocating up there someday (soon?). Second of all, when you get to Chicago, make sure to spend some time down on the Lakefront. Being down there, whether you're walking, riding or people watching, it really makes you think about how bad Cleveland messed up on the development of their waterfront. Lots of missed opportunity up there but I digress.

So, here's where my fun morning of dodging through rollerbladers, dog walkers and recreation riders takes a turn for the worse. I have always been completely honest and transparent in my blog, but if you're under the age of 18, you may not want to continue reading as I don't want to be responsible for the corruption of any minors. Back to the story.....we made it all the way to the end of the bike path which is about 18 or so miles north of where we started. Anticipating a fun and fast return back to Pat & Kristy's condo, I decided the half-way point would be a good place to make a quick pit stop before turning around. Fortunately, there was a public restroom right there...what luck! As we roll up, there's a guy walking down the path and like anybody would probably do, I tossed out a hello and what's up. He mumbled something that I didn't really hear as I was concentrating on getting to the bathroom before the Gatorade that was inside of me made a forceful exit. So, I unclipped out of my pedals, put the bike against the wall and here comes this same guy again into the restroom. I thought it was a bit strange as he had probably just left there but who knows, maybe he was having some issues and couldn't venture far away from the safety of a toilet. Who was I to judge? Another second of taking off and stashing my gloves and in I went. To my surprise, the restroom was somewhat large with 4 urinals and this guy was at the far end. Thank God I know enough about the unwritten rule of not standing next to someone so I went to the one that was two away from him because the last one was in plain view of the exterior and I do like a bit of modesty. You know how you see things out of your peripheral vision that you don't really want or intend to see? Well, I can tell that this guy has got some 'weird' type of movement there for going pee. I chalked it up to maybe a Chicago thing and that he was just finishing up. I've always said and been told that shake it three times and any more than that you're playing with yourself. Well, out of my peripheral vision, I could see that this guy was looking at me and he probably wasn't peeing, I couldn't be sure but damn it really seemed weird. Of all the times to get stage fright while going to the bathroom and all I could do was stand there and pray for me to pee soon. I was frantically thinking, pee or leave, pee or leave.....My decision was immediately made when his random, slow hand movements sped up and some moaning occurred. That's it, I had all the evidence that I needed, this guy wasn't peeing, how do I say it discreetly...he was choking the chicken, polishing his knob, pleasuring himself and he was using me as his sexy pinup boy. AUGH!!! AUGH!!! AUGH!!! I quickly got out of there, still not having went and left immediately. I remember having the thought, do I say something to this guy, do I tell Pat to come in and we can laugh at him for being insane, do I kick his ass, maybe call the cops on him? My first intuition was to just get on the bike and go which is what I did. This guy was a Freak with a capital F and who knows what else he was capable of. So, there you have it Miner getting violated in Chicago while on a bike ride. I will always be careful now when venturing into a public bathroom. Maybe I will do what women do and have a friend go in with me or something.

Race at the Lakes - Round 3b

2008-05-04T21:08:00.008-04:00

I don’t get many opportunities to ride outside. I can get all the early morning rides on the trainer that I want, but in all honesty getting up at 5:00 a.m. to get an hours workout in before going to work is getting old, especially now that the weather’s getting so nice outside. I would say that on average, I only ride about 6 hours a week. On a good week, I might see 8 hours. I don't think, with the exception of the Boone, North Carolina trips that I ever have any weeks that have more volume in it than that so needless to say, I jump on any opportunity I might have to ride. With the lousy weather we had yesterday, today seemed like an absolute dream and I started thinking during the middle of mass this morning on which of my favorite routes I would be doing this afternoon. As I was getting my things ready to go, I looked outside, saw my son Nicholas playing and decided that I’d rather spend some time with him on the bike, rather than training down in the Valley. He had been asking for a few weeks about riding with me out at the RATL course and I figured today was as good as any day to do that. It’s so close and I figured after a few laps, we’d be done and I’d still have time for a quick workout.

I’ll be honest, this might be the best way to race out there. Nicholas and I grabbed some chalk, made a quick start line and we were off, me riding the Cervelo and he on his slightly undersized Specialized. I keep meaning to give Sherman up at Bike Authority a call to see what we can do about getting him something more his size and this might just be the nice reminder that I need to do just that. Each lap around the course had plenty of breaks, either to look at the water, pick up Dandelions, play on the playground equipment or just to grab a drink of Gatorade. I’d even say that this was by far the best time I’ve ever spent out there on this course. I don’t think I’ve ever had an opportunity to really see the beauty that this park has to offer, especially when accompanied by a 5 year old. It’s nice to slow down every once in a while. Oh, by the way, just like all the previous races I’ve done out there, I didn’t win this one either and I didn't get any more training in afterwards. Guess I'll be getting up really early tomorrow.

b

Here’s the data for today’s race:

Entire workout (38 watts):
Duration: 55:50 (1:54:33)
Work: 122 kJ
TSS: 4.9 (intensity factor 0.234)
Norm Power: 66
VI: 1.73
Distance: 5.891 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 240 38 watts
Cadence: 29 141 56 rpm
Speed: 2.2 15.1 6.5 mph
Pace 3:58 26:49 9:15 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 304 45 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 378 60 lb-in

Race at the Lakes - Round 3

2008-05-03T20:48:00.003-04:00

This morning when I woke up and I saw the weather radar, there was absolutely no chance that I wouldn’t be racing today. I like having a little diversity and bad weather always leads to a more selective field. The only question for me was would I ride my bike over to the race or drive myself instead? I made my decision quickly when the rain started coming down around 8:00 this morning. I decided to opt for the warm and dry car ride instead of the bike ride over. I recalled seeing a picnic shelter that I could go set up shop in and stay warm and dry and that seemed a lot better to me than riding in the cold rain. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that there was no chance in hell that we would stay dry during the race, I just figured why get wet any sooner than absolutely necessary.

The Cat 4 field was expectedly smaller than the previous two weeks races when the weather was a bit nicer. I would estimate that maybe we had about 25 guys in the field which I thought for such lousy conditions really wasn’t too bad. Joining me from Stark Velo today were Tim, Matt, Marshall and Josh.

This was a weird race today for some reason as it just didn’t seem to play out the way they typically do. Typically it’s a sit and sprint situation with one large field. Today this race ended breaking up more often than Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee. It all started off with Matt taking a solo flier early into the race, maybe around lap 3 or 4. He did a great job opening up a small gap but after a lap, he was back in the field. Summit did a great job of immediately countering Matt’s move. They didn’t get far but once we were all back together I noticed that these two small efforts split the field in several groups. What once was a group of 25 was now a small select group of 10. Nice, if this could work I’d be looking at a top 10 finish for sure! We managed to stay clear for several more laps but I don’t know whether it was guys killing themselves to win primes or what but there was never a consistent tempo that would have been helpful to keep us clear. We were soon joined by about 4 or 5 other guys who managed to bridge back up to us. I was happy to see that two of them were Tim and Josh because I knew by this time that I just didn’t have the legs for the race today and I felt bad not being able to help Matt out. Having two additional teammates who could help cover any dangerous moves meant I could almost just concentrate on getting myself to the finish line as I was struggling just to stay with this lead group. I don’t know how I go from feeling so strong one day to feeling horrible the next but I just never felt good in the race. Needless to say I had nothing left in the tank so when the tempo got really hot with one lap to go; I lost contact and rode in solo to finish up another mediocre performance for ‘08. Matt was the best placed Velo rider in 6th place with Josh and Tim finishing up just in front of me. I think Team Spin won today’s round but there’s one more opportunity for Stark Velo to pull out a win or podium at next weeks event.

A look at the data afterwards reveals that the race was much harder than I had perceived it being during the race.

Duration: 51:19
Work: 774 kJ
TSS: 99.5 (intensity factor 1.079)
Norm Power: 302
VI: 1.2
Distance: 19.81 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 883 252 watts
Heart rate: 101 183 168 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 100 rpm
Speed: 0 32.8 23.1 mph
Pace 1:50 0:00 2:36 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 342 76 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1296 213 lb-in

Race at the Lakes - Round 2

2008-04-28T12:18:00.006-04:00

Well, I stand corrected from last weeks race report, it is possible for a breakaway to be successful in the Cat 4 field at RATL. The Cat 4 field size was a bit smaller than last weeks, I guess the threat of rain kept a few of the riders from last week away which was OK with me. I for one was hoping that it would be a serious downpour as I tend to like those nasty conditions a bit better. I'm 1/1000 Belgium so I kept my eye on the heavens but of course, I also think that I'm 1/1000 Kenyan (which I'll be calling on for the Columbus Marathon later) so those two heritages actually cancel themselves so I wasn't left with much of an advantage.

Joining me in the Cat 4 field for Velo were Tim House, Josh Troche, Matt Turi, Chris Smith and Jason Leaman. With the strong wind, my plans were to stay safely in the field, keep attentive and if anything promising happened, try to follow it. Well, I found myself very early in the race going with moves that were destined to fail. One move was with a solo Summit rider (who happened to win the race later) but it was all brought back within the lap. We needed more people to make that one stick. Another move a bit later was with a few other guys with each of the teams being represented so I figured it would stick. Nope, it got pulled back too. Another move was a counter attack to Tim's initial attack. What failed my move (besides not being a great athlete) was it was also a prime lap and my attack came near the hill. I wasn't attacking to try to win $5, I was attacking so my buddies efforts weren't in vain, and I wanted to win the race. I was caught just before the line so I didn't even win the lousy $5. It was nice to see Josh counter my move right away. For a guy who proclaims that he doesn't like to climb anything greater than the natural curvature of the Earth, it was impressive to see him make the effort at the top of the climb. From here, things settled down a bit for a few laps until another move made its way off the front. Seemed to have representation of every team in it except Snake Bite. There was no immediate response to bring it back and so the break slowly gained some time on us. Matt Turi was up there representing Velo and I felt confident knowing that I could just cruise on in to the finish line as I was definitely feeling the days earlier efforts. All of a sudden I see a Velo rider coming back. Crap, now it's time to try to make a move, only problem was that I was suffering just to keep the tempo, let alone try to bring it back or bridge. Now I was cursing my earlier failed efforts, but you never know how these things work out. Chris Smith made an effort to get across but only made it about halfway in the bridge attempt before coming back. Then Jason made the effort and was able to pull everyone up to two of the breakaway companions but the days winner had shed them earlier, taking the solo win.

Looking at the data, it's no wonder why I had nearly nothing left. With a normalized power of 307 watts for the race, that's well above what I thought was my current FTP level. In all honesty, I've never had any power levels that high in any race that I've done before. The closest that I've come is 300W out at Snitgers and I would have considered that the toughest race in the area. I guess a lot can be said about racing smart and not trying to make unnecessary moves. Just shows the amount of energy and fitness needed to race really aggressive. That being said, I'll be back at it again next week as I'd rather lose the race trying to win it than be pack fodder. My racing $.02 of course.

Here's the power levels for the day:

Duration: 49:29
Work: 742 kJ
TSS: 98.9 (intensity factor 1.095)
Norm Power: 307
VI: 1.23
Distance: 19.901 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1098 250 watts
Heart rate: 103 188 171 bpm
Cadence: 30 141 102 rpm
Speed: 7.7 34.1 24.1 mph
Pace 1:46 7:47 2:29 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 304 72 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1028 207 lb-in

Race at the Lakes

2008-04-19T21:56:00.003-04:00

Wow. What a difference some sunny, warm weather will make. Seems like anyone who rides a bike in Northeast Ohio was out at Munroe Falls Metro Park this morning for the annual Race at the Lakes. This is always a fun race to be in and the Summit Freewheelers/Rainbow Inks team always does a great job at putting this series together. This morning I was joined by fellow Starkies, Matt Turi, Tim House, Marshall Leininger, Josh Troche and Jason Leaman in the Cat 4 field along with about 50 other riders. From a quick glance it seemed like all of the local teams had a major presence, Spin, Snake Bite, and Summit all had a lot more guys there this morning then we did. The history of this race is that the probability of a breakaway actually being successful is next to zero. No way, not going to happen, not in the Cat 4 field anyways. The last time I remember seeing it happening was when I was a Cat 5 and I watched Rick Parr get away Jimmy McDonald about 3 years ago. It’s not that the Cat 4 field is organized and lets something get away until the very end where it gets swallowed up in the last lap or two; it’s just that any move that is made is immediately reacted to. Possibly because this race is just that the race is so short and guys know they’re only a few miles from the finish line, even when they just roll out of the starting gate. (This is of course my best guess). Today I thought could be the exception to this rule with so many teams here. If the right move went up the road with all the major players in it, maybe there was a chance unless teams started chasing down their own teammates, which in the Cat 4 field turns out to happen more often than not. (Again, my editorial comment). My goal this morning was to ride conservatively and be attentive and see if anything happened. If I saw a move developing that had the major players in it, I would do my best to get in it as well. I decided to play it conservative and to try not to initiate it. The race started like it normally does, guys trying to get away but inevitably being swallowed back up in no time. It wasn’t until about half way through the race when I saw a move that looked promising. I quickly make the jump and bridged up to them but by the time we hit the ‘hill’ we were all back together. Turns out, every other Cat 4 wanted to be there as well. The race would follow this routine for the remainder of the race, only to be broken up by the sound of a blown tire and then a savage sounding wreck behind me. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt. The race finished as predicted, in a mass sprint. Congratulations to today’s winners, I believe the Spin guys took first and third, not sure how the rest of the field placed. I know that I finished somewhere in the top 15 or 20 guys and Matt was the best place Stark Velo in seventh. I can’t wait until next week.

Here's the data for the race today.

b

Work: 677 kJ
TSS: 86.1 (intensity factor 1.034)
Norm Power: 290
VI: 1.24
Distance: 19.374 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 972 234 watts
Heart rate: 115 185 164 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 100 rpm
Speed: 2.4 35.1 24.0 mph
Pace 1:43 24:46 2:30 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 355 67 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 904 194 lb-in

Tour of Richaland County

2008-03-30T07:58:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the kick off for my 2008 racing program. I wanted to race a bit earlier this year but as everyone knows in Northeast Ohio, almost every race prior to this one had been cancelled due to weather. It was for this reason that I was expecting a huge turn out at this race. I know it wasn’t super warm out, but it was above 40 degrees and sunny and couple those two elements with cabin fever, I would have imagined that every race within a 200 mile radius would want to get out to test their fitness on this challenging course. You can imagine my surprise when I only saw about two dozen racers in the Cat 4-5 race. Oh well, better odds for me, especially with the finish line at the bottom of the climb this year. Wow, maybe I have a shot this year.

It was nice to see a lot of Stark Velo at this race. There was almost so many it appeared like it was a training ride where we invited other riders. I think every field (with the exception of the 1/2/3 and the women’s) had 4 or 5 riders. Joining me in the Cat 4-5 race were Matt Turi, Sebastian Birch, new guys Greg Fletcher and Greg Banic. Everyone talks about this race and the big climb on it. Now racing this course for the second time, I don’t think that climb is as decisive as everyone feels it is. In my opinion, it’s the miles of steep rollers that come after it that are much more painful and selective. Just like last year, that’s what would cause my undoing. For me, it came on the second lap, on the last steep roller just before making the final right hand turn onto that valley road. I lost contact with them and although they stayed within eye site, I could never bridge back up to them. Getting dropped sucks big time, but it gives some time for reflection. I guess this is the case with every race but if only I would have had a bit more fitness, I really think I could have had a shot at this race. Tactically this race was easy. It’s not like there were guys attacking all over the place on the hills. In fact, it was completely the opposite, it was just a steady grind all the way through and the course is what selected who finished and who didn’t. In the two dozen or so starters, I counted 9 in front of me when I fell off the back. In some weird sense, I was happy to have lasted to at least to that point. If I could keep anyone from catching me, I could have a top 10 place for the day! I just wouldn’t tell anyone, except for the blogging community that it came a minute after the rest of the winners….

On the last half lap, again on those darn rollers, I could see a few riders coming up from behind me. All of a sudden I heard “Is that you Miner?” I looked back again and saw a bit of yellow so I figured it was one of my teammates and said yes. Turns out the yellow was of an independent rider and the one who knew me was Jay from Breakaway. Check out his blog when you get the chance, always good reading. Anyway, turns out Jay and the indy were in my field so now I had a few guys to ride to the finish with and make it a bit more interesting. We rode along well together for the next several miles where we picked up another indy rider from our field. Yes, if I could now out sprint these guys I could get ninth place! Ok, not so big of a deal. When we were on the last miles of the valley road, we were doing a paceline at the urging of one of the independent riders. I don’t mind doing this and it helps everyone get to the finish quicker, but the problem was it was so slow. Watching my speed and power meter, I had gone through this section solo on the previous lap about 3 mph and a few dozen watts faster. I thought to myself, when should I attack this group and just ride in by myself? I also thought, would that make me a jerk to attack this group? I don’t want to be viewed as that, but I also didn’t want a bunch more riders catching me from behind because we were barely doing 20 mph. So fortunately, it wasn’t me but Jay who put the hammer down. I quickly found his wheel and a quick glance of who was left and we were down to three riders. From there, it was a nice steady rotation until about a mile until the finish where I found myself stuck in front, it seems as though the indy rider didn’t want to come around me anymore. Funny how we fight for the scraps. Ok, no big deal, that’s bike racing and if I’m going to lead you out, I’m going to do my best to make you suffer a bit while doing it. I quickly ramped it up into the finish and soon we were doing 29/30 mph going into the last few hundred meters. I took a quick look behind me and saw Jay furiously sprinting to make up a small gap on my wheel. I started sprinting but couldn’t quite hold him off; he nipped me at the line. D@#n you Jay….D@#n you!!! Just kidding, it was a blast. Not sure where I ended up finishing but I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Ok, so that was my race in no man’s land. One of these days, I’ll have a sweet report from the front of the race.

B

Malabar Farms Race:
Duration: 1:34:22
Work: 1375 kJ
TSS: 166.7 (intensity factor 1.029)
Norm Power: 283
VI: 1.17
Distance: 30.59 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 774 243 watts
Heart rate: 63 204 166 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 91 rpm
Speed: 2.7 37.4 19.5 mph
Pace 1:36 22:27 3:05 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 442 104 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 817 229 lb-in

Another AZ. Pic

2008-03-20T07:50:00.004-04:00

I'm really off my game this week. Thanks to jal for giving me the heads up on this one....

2008-03-18T07:41:00.001-04:00

Tucson Training Camp

2008-03-17T12:39:00.004-04:00

It's that time of year again when all my friends head out to Tucson, Arizona for their annual training camp and I get stuck here in Ohio to deal with this lousy March weather. Well, to make myself feel better, I like to have fun with the pictures that they send back. I pray to God that they never learn PhotoShop.

Could I be doping?

2008-02-29T12:28:00.006-05:00

I don’t know if I’m like most people in this world but typically I wait until the very last minute to do certain things like purchase my race license. Usually it’s about a week before my first race when I realize that I will need it and this year was no different. I had been planning on racing the Arnold Classic on Sunday down in Columbus (I came down with the flu last weekend and have yet to make it back onto my bike so I’m in question right now) so I jumped online last Friday evening to purchase it. Like clockwork, my race license arrived within a week and showed up yesterday in the mail. Has anyone ever looked on the backside of the card that the license is attached to? I don’t typically, maybe because I’m usually ripping it off in a hurry to catch my first race but this morning while eating breakfast I noticed a warning there. Curious on what this warning said, I decided to read it.

Do you mean to tell me that I need to give up taking one of my son’s Flintstone Vitamins each morning? Is that how Fred and Barney were able to power their cars with their feet because they were doping? I knew it along. It’s always your heroes that let you down, apparently that now applies to the world of animation as well.

Great Editorial

2008-02-18T12:36:00.003-05:00

I've recently been thinking about writing my thoughts on the current state of cycling. No Astana at the Tour or any other ASO event, the reopening of the Peurto Case and now no Tyler, Santiago or Oscar at the Tour of California. This afternoon at lunch, I stumpled on a great editorial that I wanted to pass along to everyone. It's long but in my opinion, well worth the read. Looking at the current state of professional cycling, I'm so glad that I chose Architecture as my career choice.

http://www.procyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5670&status=True

b

My Progress Report

2008-02-11T17:13:00.000-05:00

The Holiday Parties have all ended; I’ve caught my breath, have fully recovered from the Elves & More 2007 campaign and now I have nothing to do. Oh wait, there is that cycling thing that I used to do, maybe I could get started once again with that? It seems like it had been that long from when I really last rode. Sure, I’d been on the bike a few times during the fall, but that was just for fun with the kids down on the towpath and it has been months, and I literally mean months since I last did any type of serious training. With the lack of exercise I found that I had quickly gained a lot of pounds during my extended offseason. Long gone are the days when I could grab a chair, open up the fridge and sit down and just eat the leftovers with no repercussions at all. Now my slowing metabolism is nothing like the cheetah I used to be, but more along the lines of snail or possibly even a rock. I apparently can put weight on faster than Oprah. I seem to forget that problem every autumn and I quickly put the weight back on again, negating all the hard work I had previously done. This fall will be different!

So like most of America, I decided that January 1st would be the kick-off for my 2008 training program. Knowing that I was already months behind where I typically should be this time of year, I had a lot of ground to make up and quickly. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my goals are somewhat different this year with the inclusion of the Columbus Marathon. Because of this my competitive cycling season will be cut short. It’s unfortunate that I have lousy fitness now because I really need and want to start racing earlier than I would normally consider if I want to do any racing at all which of course cuts my early season preparation even shorter.
I wanted to take a retrospective look back at my 2007 season before I started training this year so I could look at my history and not be doomed to repeat it. The following image shows training info for 2007 along with a brief glimpse at what I've done so far in 08.

You can see that there was a steady increase in all of my values as I went through the spring campaign. My high CTL was 58 at the end of June, and then I hit the big decline in training. That was initially caused by quickly preparing to put our house on the market and followed up by the fatigue of riding my bike. It wasn’t until I finally committed myself to racing the Fall Classic that I got back to business and trained. Unfortunately it was too little too late for me. One good thing that I learned out of that experience however was that for me to feel competitive in races, I need to have a CTL of over 50. This is reinforced by looking back at my 2006 season and seeing that I had a CTL of 60 during my planned peak in late May of that year. Now I just need to get that CTL even higher!

With this knowledge in hand, I went ahead and tried to design my training plan for the first part of the year so I could get those values up to where I was targeting. Last year things went haywire and I didn’t do this and it showed. Although I had decent fitness, I never achieved the really good form I had in 06 when I was on a strict training plan while working with Charles Howe of Velodynamics. Here’s what my training plan looks like so far for 08:

Getting back into it during the first week was my body struggling and resisting the hard work I was making it do. Apparently my laziness and routine of doing almost nothing was beginning to turn me into a real slacker. I resisted the temptation to become a leisure rider on the towpath that my body was telling me I could do with absolutely no training effort and I finally convinced myself to burn through all those cobwebs that had settled in my legs. Starting out with one 20 minute effort at only 250 watts was difficult (note that my typical FTP during the season is about 315 watts, well above this). It didn’t take long though before my average wattage during those 20 minute efforts really began to jump up. My final single 20 minute effort during the first block of training finished up at 278W with my 2x5’s at 300W.

I was beginning to become happy with where my wattage and weight was heading so I decided to recently step it up and transition into 2x20’s, which is where I am now. I’ve only done one workout so far, the second one scheduled to come up tomorrow night, but I was happy that I was able to maintain the 275W for both efforts. What’s important is that although I felt spent at the end of the workout, I felt good and know that with each passing week, I’ll be able to average higher and higher wattages. The chart below is a comparison of my CTL (Chronic Training Load) up to this point in 2007 and this year. This years CTL is shown in Red (Note that the ATL and TSS are from 2007). As you can see, my values are relatively close to where I was at last year. I attribute the fact that I’m higher this year compared to last year because of my starting points. Last year I started out with my CTL values at 0 since it was new software and this year I actually had a few CTL points saved up.

What’s this mean? Well, I would suggest that at this point, without making changes to my training plan, I’ll be exactly as I was last year, which I guess is good news for all the Cat 4’s reading this! I do think however that I am several weeks ahead of where I was at this point last year. That means I should be reaping the benefits of better fitness to help me be more competitive in my racing. My ambitions for this season are to be competitive and a player in each and every race that I enter. I know I won’t have many opportunities so I want to make the most of the time that I have. First up, will be the Arnold Classic down in Columbus on March 2nd, dependent upon the weather of course. I typically don’t care for crits but this one will almost be like a local race with Jen’s family down there. More updates to follow, I hope.

b

I'm still here....sorta

2008-02-07T07:37:00.000-05:00

It's been way too long since my last post. I'm currently working on something now and hope to have the new content up this weekend, once my legal and marketing team have given me approval :)

b

Presenting my Best of 2007

2007-12-31T19:31:00.001-05:00

This is something that I started a few years ago. It's always fun this time of year to look back at what I've accomplished both on and off the bike.

In 2007 I pedaled 3,506 miles. This was almost 1,000 short of what I did back in 2006. Not really sure why I fell so short other than almost completely stepping away from the bike for the past three months. Other than that, I've noticed burn-out in the middle of the year where it becomes more and more difficult to pedal. Seems like my training plan in the future should allow for a little more recovery prior to this happening sometime in July. In 2008 I will be focusing on the Columbus Marathon in October so my training plan will see me transitioning to running as my primary form of exercise with cycling only being used as a means of cross-training. I'm hoping this will be helpful to keep me motivated year round and that by the time the Marathon is over, I'll be anxious to get back on the bike in time for next years cross season.

Best Racing Experience this year for me would have been the Sunday stage of this years Summer Solstice Stage Race. After the experience I had with this series last year, I decided not to compete in the stage race as I didn't want to throw my hard earned coin down the tube for a mismanaged series. However, I happened to be in Columbus that weekend and knowing I had some teammates in the race, I knew I could get away from the family to race this day. The day's race was 62 miles long. By far the longest I had ever raced before so I didn't know how I would do. Probably between the combination of the majority of the guys racing having tired legs and me being fresh and on good form, I rode well to protect Darrin's position in the overall GC. It was one of those races where I simply felt unstoppable. I hope to have more of those in 2008.

Best Racing Experience Part II: This years Fall Challenge. I didn't have the fitness to really compete on a course like this, but I loved the experience. It was so close to home and Quick Road is one of the hills I do on a typical training ride so racing on really familiar roads was a great experience. I also loved the absolute downpour that we raced in. Rain typically kills the turnout for races but racing in the rain took me back to all those carefree rides I did while I was a kid. Didn't matter if it was raining, snowing or a beautiful sunny day, we were always outside riding our bikes. Thanks to Rainbow Inks (Summit) for putting on a great event, sorry I can't race in in 08 but I will come out to spectate for sure.

Best Cycling Purchase: I laid pretty low on the bike accessories this year. I did end up buying two cross bikes...one for my wife Jennifer and one for me. I'm happy to say that she has put way more miles on her bike than I have. I can't complain about this because now she sees why I love riding so much so it actually makes it a little easier to sneak away for a training ride.

Worst Cycling Purchase: I paid some money for a set of Carbon Compact Cranksets from a discount online retailer. Worst piece of sh$t that I have ever bought as the non-drive side crank arm kept stripping, even after having a bike shop install the replacement arm. Please note that the first time it was installed, a local Velo installed it who I have more faith in when it comes to bike maintenance than I do most guys in the shops so I'm certain that it was installed correctly. This is the reason why you have seen me riding a Carbon Compact on the drive side and my old Ultegra non-drive side crank arm. Look for me to replace this with a new carbon compact crankset from a reputable local bike shop.

Favorite Training Ride in Ohio: I enjoy any ride heading down into the Valley, but probably my favorite ride is my loop that goes up Snowville Road, then I work my way over to Medina-Line Road down to Bath Road and then head back to Cuyahoga Falls. It's about 45 miles long but as Rick would say...it's scenic as all get out.

Favorite Training Ride outside of Ohio: Day Two in Boone, North Carolina this year saw us climbing Beech Mountain. Riding this significant climb with the majority of my teammates this year on an epic day in the mountains was something I'll always remember. I'm hoping that a trip to Boone will be in my cards again for 08.

What I'll do again in '08: I'll continue to represent Stark Velo to the best of my abilities and forge new friendships with the racing community and strengthen those relationships that I've already created.

What I won't do in '08: Shave my legs with a razor that's been sitting in the shower unused for three months. Ouch. I've learned my lesson and have just continued shaving during the 'off season' in lieu of letting it grow back.

Most improved Stark Velo rider: My vote would have to go towards Chris Smith. In only his second year racing, he really came through with some big results. Look for him to upgrade to a Cat 3 here very soon.

What I hope to accomplish in '08: I hope to upgrade to Cat 3 at some point along the way. It's going to be a short season so this might be tough. I might end up waiting another year but I don't want to be a Cat 4 forever.

What I'll miss most in '08: I'll miss showing up to Tuesday night training rides and seeing Scott Thor show up. I knew those were going to be punishing rides if he came but they were some of my most enjoyable...in a painful sort of way. Good luck in SoCal Scott.

What I hope to do differently in '08: I hope to ride with more teammates in '08. Last year I did a lot of training on my own. While productive, it wasn't always the funnest thing to do. I hope to be crashing the House's house more often this year to take advantage of those weekend century rides that those guys do.

Well, that about does it for my best of list. Hope you had as much fun reading as I have had writing it. 2007 was a great year for me. I didn't do all that I wanted to with my racing, but sitting here on December 31st, I'm very lucky to be where I'm at. I'm happy and healthy, I have a loving wife and two wonderful boys, I have a great job and I'm a partner in Elves and More. This year, Tim and I along with countless volunteers and contributors, helped make Christmas special for over 950 kids living in the Summit Lake neighborhood. I hope to write more about this experience shortly, but in the meantime, check out my cousins blog who did a cool little write up on it here. It's good to be a part of something larger than just yourself. I would consider riding as a member of Stark Velo to be a part of this. I'm lucky to have met such great people while riding my bike and I look forward to seeing everyone back on the road soon.

Happy New Year!

brian

You know it's been too long when....

2007-12-31T08:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finally managed to sneak in a little ride. Looking back at my yearly training log, I can see that I managed to sneak in three rides during the month of October, three rides during the month of November and wait....only two rides this month. Not wanting to be considered a slacker, I figured I'd better step it up a bit and at least match these great numbers that I've been putting in the past several months :)
I'm usually a bit of a sissy when it comes to riding this time of the year and 40 degrees has been my typical cut-off for riding outside. I don't mind putting in two hours on the trainer so my feeling has sort of been why beat yourself up in the cold if you don't have to? Well, seeing how tough Scott Thor is out in SoCal by braving temps in the low 50's, I figured with the proper clothing I should be able to ride in the mid 30's brr...brr. Actually, the conditions couldn't have been better for this time of year (well, actually they could have). With no wind and endless dry roads, I knew the timing couldn't be better to make it out for my first ride in almost a month.
Getting my bike and gear ready, it hit me that it's been an awful long time since I've really ridden my Cervelo. You know it's been a long time when you go to inflate your tires and instead of the 120psi that you're accustomed to seeing, you see 80psi. You also know its been too long when you have to dust your bike off and knock a few spider webs down. I think someone wrote in the dust "Ride Me." Vowing to make the best of my ride, I jokingly told my wife I'd see her in five minutes and left towards the Valley. I thought I would forgo my typical iPod in favor of pure silence. In the back of my mind I also knew that during the warm months, motorists aren't watching for cyclists, I was sure that on a winters day there would even be less people expecting a cyclist on the road. Not taking the iPod also proved great because I was able to experience the calmness of the Valley. Most weekends when I'm riding the valley is packed with motorists and motorcycles wanting to get a taste of the outdoors behind their glass windows. Today, it was literally just me and the road. I probably saw a dozen cars during my two hour outing. The day ended in my putting in just under two hours. Not bad considering I had only really intended on riding 60 to 90 minutes tops. It was just one of those days, and I know we've all had them, when you just didn't want to turn around.

Here are the numbers for the day, nothing too crazy as I will be in a major rebuilding phase of my fitness for a long...long...time.

brian

Duration: 1:57:55 (1:58:50)
Work: 1289 kJ
TSS: 106.9 (intensity factor 0.738)
Norm Power: 214
VI: 1.17
Distance: 30.097 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 531 183 watts
Heart rate: 88 184 155 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 87 rpm
Speed: 2.2 43 15.4 mph
Pace 1:24 26:49 3:54 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 482 95 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1235 192 lb-in

Gorge Metro Park to Cascade Metro Park Run

2007-11-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

Two blog entries in one day....I must be going crazy or something. A coworker of mine passed this website along to me www.mapmyrun.com . It's been a good site for my running because being a data junkie, I can go home and map my routes to see how far I've run. Today I wanted to do a little exploration so I decided to run down to Gorge Metro Park and see where it took me. I ended up running all the way down into the Valley to another Metro Park called Cascade Valley. I'd ridden my bikes by all of these places before but never ventured in. Absolutely beautiful. It's a shame that the parks are closed to bikes because I kept thinking how great it would be to take the cross bike down there and ride around. There are a lot more trails down there but I was just trying to find the quickest way out since daylight was quickly fading and I was starting to get cold. Anyway, an hour after leaving the house I returned, a little tired but happy I completed my route.

brian

Here's the route:

Gorge to Cascade Metro Parks
Find more Runs in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Elving, Training and just general Loafing

2007-11-23T08:07:00.000-05:00

With Scott Thor's departure to sunny SoCal I'm going to have to step it up a bit with my blogging entries now that it looks like I'm the premier 'local' blogger for SV by default. Note I said local as Thor will always be a Velo at heart.

I can tell you that the past month has flown by and it looks like December is all setup to do the same. I wish I could say I've been putting in mega-miles on the bike but the truth is I've barely even wanted to look at my bike, let alone ride it. The last time I was out on the road was about three weeks ago when I hooked up with teammates Tim House and Darrin Kert for a 40 miler. I'm usually in a mindset this time of year where I welcome the break from the bike but am looking forward to kicking off my training again. This year I'm in a totally new situation where I really am not in a hurry to ride again; not sure what the change has been for me but I hope I kick out of it soon as my waistline can't take much more time off.

Elves and More has been keeping me busy and like I said previously, I'll be even busier as we begin to receiving our bikes and get ready for the assembly and delivery. If you haven't already, please go to our website to see how you can become involved. There is no better way to kick off your holidays, I can guarantee you.

In my previous blogs, I talked about my experience running in the Akron Marathon. This has me motivated for 08 to run my first full marathon. I figured that I'm turning 35 next year and what better way to celebrate (besides being race eligible in the masters category now) then by running 26.2 miles for the sheer fun of it. I'm working with my cousin who has raced several of them to setup my training program for next year. This is what it looks like so far:

It's a fairly ambitions schedule for a first timer. I think I'll know fairly early in the schedule on whether its attainable or not but my goal is to run a Boston Qualifier with for me will be 3 hours and 15 minutes. Some people approach Boston as wanting to run a few warm up marathons first before trying to qualify. My thoughts are why go through all that suffering, just go for it and see what happens. Starting off the program with 6 mile runs means that my running can't begin on day one of the program. I've made an effort to keep running at least a few days a week and hope to continue to do so through the winter and spring while trying to enter some half-marathons and 10k events along the way. One of my favorite runs that I've recently found is from my house down to a park called Babb Run. From my place, through the trails and back it makes for a very nice 5 miler. Everytime I've gone down I've always wanted to keep running and exploring but couldn't because of time constraints. That's a first for me as usually I'm always very happy to be finished running. Down there I didn't want to stop. What's amazing about this place is that its so close to home and nobody knows its even there, giving you your own private park in the middle of suburbia. About five years ago there was a lot of flooding in the area which washed out the road leading down into Babb Run. Because no repairs have been made to it, the place is completely empty. Here's a picture that I was able to find looking down into Babb Run.

Well, that's it for now. I will do my best to keep updates coming a little more frequently.

brian

Race Cartoon

2007-10-05T09:37:00.000-04:00

Akron Road Runner Marathon

2007-09-30T10:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, along with several coworkers, I participated in the Fifth Annual Akron Road Runner Marathon's team relay. This is actually the third time in four years that I've run this event (I missed last years event due to the birth of William), each time running the same 10k (6.2 mile) leg (the one that runs through the University of Akron and finishes up in Sand Run park). I enjoy this route because it gives me the best of both worlds, one being running through downtown with all the crowds and excitement and the other running on the trail in nature and solitude.
So this race kicks off early. 7:00 a.m. start time. Not too bad but considering that we wanted to meet at 6:30 downtown for some group pictures made it an early wake up. Running competitively is something new to me. I have what I need to do to prepare myself for a bike race down to a science, whether it is a criterium or road race. Running I just don't have figured out yet so I figured a safe bet would be to try to utilize the portions of my pre-race preparations that I could for this one which would be my pre-race meal, oatmeal and juice. I knew oatmeal is probably a little heavy but with my start time somewhere around 8:15 I assumed eating it two hours early would be perfect timing for when my body needed that fuel.
After the start, I went with two of my coworkers down another block to watch the runners go through downtown and cheer on my teammates Bob Medziuch and Ben Rantilla (Hasenstab Architects fielded two teams, a 'competitive' team that I was a part of and a 'fun team'.) Once we saw them come though as scheduled, we began the long walk to our start point for our warm up and stretching. At my start point, the place is littered with runners of all shapes and sizes. It's amazing to see how many people come out to partake in this event. It's been fun to be running in the parks and just seeing the mass of runners out doing their training runs as well. After a thorough stretch and last minute run to the bathroom, I waited in the mob for my teammate, Ed Paine to come through. We had loosely calculated times so we knew when to expect them to get there, but with the mass of people, it could get very confusing so we wanted to be safe and make sure we were attentive really early so we didn't loose any time trying to find each other in the transitions. (I noticed several teams have this issue this year). Once I received the bracelet from Ed I was off. Within the first few hundred feet I heard the shouts of support from several coworkers who came out to cheer us on. I'm glad they saw me then because who knows how lousy I will look at the end of this thing. The last time I ran this I completed it in 43 minutes, 20 seconds. This year my only goal was to complete my leg in under 45 minutes as I wasn't real confident in my fitness this year. Straight out of the gate I was running fast, too fast in hindsight but our office was having a competition against another architect in town and I knew those guys had a four minute head start on me....I was hoping to close that down and ideally gain some time in my leg. Running through the University and downtown I felt great. One thing about bike racing is that besides the few supportive spouses that come out, there's nobody to cheer you on. At this event, there are literally thousands of folks out there cheering you on and being supportive. If only cycling could capture some of that fan base....I digress. I'm running through downtown and I finally find my stride, somewhere I thought to be around 7 minute per mile pace. I'm finally feeling good and passing tons of people like they're marching in the Macy's Day parade. As I make the right hand turn onto the towpath trail by the Mustill Store I look at my watch.....just over 13 minutes. OK, this is about two miles in and I'm at 13 minutes....6 minute, 30 second pace...too fast. I might pay big time for this early effort as I know there is no way I can sustain this effort for the next 4.2 miles. It's probably best to slow it down a touch so I don't completely explode out here and leave my teammates in a bind trying to collect the thousands of little pieces that will be me stretched out over the trail. As I'm running on the trail I find myself trying to focus on the task at hand. One part of me is wondering how Nicholas is doing in the kids fun run another part of me is wishing I had my iPod with me and the last part is beginning to realize that I'm beginning to hurt a little bit. Focus Miner, focus. I switch back to the mode of concentrating on nothing else but my breathing and my stride. If I could stay focused on that I wouldn't focus on the pain that was settling in. At the halfway point I took one last look at my watch and saw just under 21 minutes. Perfect. I had slowed down a little bit too much but if I could pick it back up a little I had a legitimate shot of finishing this thing somewhere around 42 minutes. The next two miles became difficult. In cycling I know what it's like to suffer and work through this. I can honestly say that I have never suffered like I did that day running that leg. That oatmeal was settling right with me and I learned that if I didn't throttle things down a little bit, I would be getting sick. So, the trick became run as fast as I can until I feel like I'm going to get sick and then slow up a tad until that feeling goes away. It worked, I didn't get sick but next time I'm going to stay away from the oatmeal and find something a little lighter, at least for a fast 10k event. Knowing I needed to slow down a little bit I was really worried about my goal time of 45 minutes. I figured it was totally lost now because I felt like I was running a 10 minute per mile pace between miles 3.5 and 5. Once I hit that last mile I knew I was virtually in the finishing stretch and I pushed it as hard as I possibly could. Finally emerging from the towpath on Akron-Peninsula road I had several coworkers and teammates there to cheer me on which was huge because at this point I felt like (and probably looked like) the walking dead. One last tough section of my course to finish, the hill up Portage Path to finish in Sand Run parkway. After 6 miles of running, any slight change in elevation seems huge but I felt like I was trying to climb up Mt. Everest at this point. Fortunately I had another coworker further up the road to cheer me which helped carry me through to my transition point. As I made the last turn onto the parkway, I took off that bracelet in anticipation of the exchange but also as a sign of get this thing off of me...I am done. Nevermind I still had a few hundred feet to run, if only I could take off these few additional ounces maybe that would lighten the load on my feet and get me there quickly. Safely making the exchange to Chris Betts I stopped my watch, 43minutes, 33 seconds. Wow, for as badly as I felt in those last few miles, I never would have imagined that I would have finished up with a time like that.

So, there it is, my running performance and finally another blog post for everyone to enjoy. Congratulations to all my teammates and coworkers for putting in an amazing performance. In the end, Hasenstab Architect's competitive team finished with a time of 3 hrs, 10 minutes and 49 seconds. The best ever performance by our group and good enough to put us in seventh place overall in the Men's Team Relay division. I've said it before but for a bunch of non-runners who don't train more than a few months prior to the race, I think that's really an incredible effort. I also begin to question my ability. Given that I trained for this, but not intensely, would I make a better runner than cyclist? Should I consider switching my focus? Who knows. One thing I do know is that at some point in the near future, I would like to complete a marathon. Maybe next year.

brian

Fall Challenge

2007-09-09T18:58:00.000-04:00

I awoke Sunday morning to the sound of rain drops falling outside. There’s something about lying around in bed listening to the sound of rain outside, it’s another thing knowing that you plan on actually racing your bike outside in it. Living only about 5 miles from the course, my intent was to get up early and ride over to the course to get my warm up in, that was until I saw the ark floating down the street with all the animals in it. Better just drive over there, take the trainer and setup under the entrance canopy to get a little bit of a warm up. There was no doubt that I would be getting wet for the day, no reason to get a jump start on it. After my quick warm up, I was off to the start line in the Cat 4/5 race. The rain unfortunately kept a lot of people away as our field only looked to be about 20 deep and the maters field didn’t look to be much bigger. It’s really a shame that more people didn’t come out to race. Although the weather was less than ideal, the course is challenging, scenic and most of all safe. I was impressed by the amount of support that Summit had for the course. Every corner was well marshaled and the amount of support vehicles that they had was amazing, almost seemed like one vehicle per rider. The only thing that was missing was the overhead helicopters but maybe they were grounded because of the rain.

As we rolled out at the start, I was able to count jerseys and Summit definitely had the numbers with what appeared to be 6 riders. After that, it was Orrville with 2 and Stark with Jason Leaman and me. I knew going into today that if I could hang onto wheels for the entire race; that would be a substantial victory for me. As I said earlier, this is a challenging course. You’re either climbing or descending, nothing in-between. Granted, the majority of climbing besides the first climb up Quick Road is false-flat but there are some rollers in there up by the humane society that I thought could be decisive depending upon how much recovery you were able to get through the false flats. The first lap went as well as could be expected. The first true attack came from Joel of Orrville on the decent on Wetmore road. It was in the little valley section right before the little climb that takes you back down to Akron-Peninsula road. I was sitting second wheel behind a rider from Summit and knowing that this was very early in the race for any moves to stick, I made no effort to chase. I also figured with Summit having the numbers, it would be up to them to control the race which is what happened. The rider I was following brought him back and I comfortably rode wheels back up. The big test for me was just about to come as we made the right hand turn to head up Quick Road. I knew this would be where the selections were made; I was just hoping that it wouldn’t be on lap 1. Still sitting up front, I found myself almost comfortably spinning a nice cadence while sitting in the group. I knew it wasn’t going to be this easy and as the road started to level off, the attacks came from Summit. Not so much of a hard effort but they picked up the pace enough that it strung out the field and tested my legs. Fortunately, I was at the front of the group and as the field came by me, there were enough of them that I could slightly recover by the time the back of the field came by. Although my legs were stinging, I slipped in and safely began making my way back up to the front of the group again. One lap down, 3 more to go. Not sure if I can make 3 more of these with the group or not. Turns out I couldn’t. On the next lap heading up Quick Road, my strategy of starting in the front and then slowly drifting back failed as I started the climb near the back. By the time I made it to the top of the bump, the group was just a tad too far in front of me as I just couldn’t close the gap back up. I was on my own now. I thought about quitting when I got back up to the school but figured I’d ridden this course enough times solo in practice; I could at least finish it up solo during the race. After all, I paid my money and was already soaking wet, it couldn’t get much worse than this. So I joined up with two other riders who were also off the back and we finished the race together, I’m sure much faster than I would have finished by myself.

So, the road race season for me has come to a close, thank goodness. In the next month or so, I plan on writing a post on my 2007 season, the high points, the mostly low points, my training plan (or lack thereof) and what I could have done better. In the meantime, I plan on still riding to build my fitness back up so I can hope to be somewhat competitive in cyclocross this fall which will all be new to me.

brian

Data from today's race

Entire race:
Duration: 1:32:37 (1:34:20)
Work: 1250 kJ
TSS: 134.5 (intensity factor 0.934)
Norm Power: 271
VI: 1.2
Distance: 32.646
mi Min Max Avg
Power: 0 953 225 watts
Heart rate: 117 183 160 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 96 rpm
Speed: 0 42.4 21.1 mph
Pace 1:25 0:00 2:50 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 383 82 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 837 199 lb-in

Lap#1
Duration: 22:02
Work: 290 kJ
TSS: 37.4 (intensity factor 1.01)
Norm Power: 293
VI: 1.33
Distance: 8.209 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 953 220 watts
Heart rate: 117 183 158 bpm
Cadence: 30 141 99 rpm
Speed: 0 41.3 22.3 mph
Pace 1:27 0:00 2:41 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 318 75 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 837 186 lb-in

Lap #2:
Duration: 23:29
Work: 315 kJ
TSS: 35.2 (intensity factor 0.949)
Norm Power: 275
VI: 1.23
Distance: 8.41 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 868 224 watts
Heart rate: 130 179 161 bpm
Cadence: 31 141 97 rpm
Speed: 10 42.4 21.5 mph
Pace 1:25 5:60 2:48 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 311 83 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 808 194 lb-in

Lap #3:
Duration: 22:27 (24:10)
Work: 303 kJ
TSS: 28.8 (intensity factor 0.879)
Norm Power: 255
VI: 1.13
Distance: 7.774 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 692 226 watts
Heart rate: 127 171 159 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 96 rpm
Speed: 0 39.8 20.8 mph
Pace 1:30 0:00 2:53 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 319 81 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 712 204 lb-in

Lap #4:
Duration: 24:38
Work: 342 kJ
TSS: 33 (intensity factor 0.897)
Norm Power: 260
VI: 1.12
Distance: 8.251 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 720 232 watts
Heart rate: 140 176 163 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 94 rpm
Speed: 4.6 39.5 20.1 mph
Pace 1:31 13:03 2:59 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 383 90 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 813 212 lb-in

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful….

2007-09-05T08:04:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to sneak in a bike ride in between working on the renovation of our bathroom. Because my time was limited, I decided to roll down into the Valley to get my biggest bang for the buck and tackle some of the climbs down there. One of my favorite descents there is Wheatley Road. For those who are somewhat familiar with the Valley, Wheatley will tie into Everett Road which is where the classic Covered Bridge Series is held each year. Wheatley, unless it’s an evening where there’s a concert happening over at Blossom, is lightly traveled by cars, smooth and has a fast descent which includes some s-curves on it. My point of this apparent rambling? Only to introduce the meaning behind the title of this post. When I made the juncture onto Everett, I noticed I started passing quite a few cyclists going in the opposite direction. Seeing cyclists in the Valley isn’t uncommon, in fact on the weekends the place is packed with overfilling lycra. However, the numbers of riders I was seeing was way more than the common group ride heading out from Szalay’s Farm. Turns out, these riders were taking in the morning’s charity ride called STOMP. I wish cyclists were like motorcycle riders in terms of their customs and traditions. Next time you’re out riding, take notice when you see two bikers passing each other. Without hesitation, you see their left arm drop down to the ground for a way cool sign of….hey. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 20 something on a crotch-rocket or a member of the Hells Angels passing each other, they recognize that there is a commonality between them. Even if its only riding on two wheels, they know that they’ve found a secret that most of society hasn’t, traveling through life on two wheels is just more fun. A quick google search on this even found tons of articles and discussions on this subject alone. Back to my point and all the riders I was seeing. I like to be friendly when I’m out riding, but I don’t quite get what others are thinking. I’m passing dozens and dozens of riders, I’m waving, nodding my head, saying good morning, everything but the majority of my fellow cyclists don’t respond at all. I could understand if they were in the middle of a race, but this is a charity ride for Christ’s sake, riding for the pure enjoyment of it without all the suffering. Maybe it’s my goofy smile like a virgin on prom night that scares them away. Maybe it’s my shaved legs or matching kit that they seem to think makes me “so-pro” that they mistakenly get the impression that we’re not the same. Well, we are. Just like the motorcyclists, cyclists have found out that riding through life on two wheels is just more fun.

brian

Orrville - "Smith Dairy Milk Race"

2007-08-12T13:52:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up with that new Rihanna song "Umbrella" stuck in my head, all thanks to my 4 year old Nicholas. "You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, ey, ey, ey...." By the way, there is no way that Nicholas is watching that video....I had to watch it at least a dozen times just to confirm that it wasn't appropriate for children. I actually may need to watch it a few more times just to confirm....

After a quick bowl of Oatmeal and loading up the car this morning, I was on my way to Orrville to race at the Milk Race. This is the third time I've raced it. The first year, I was involved in a crash that left me chasing for 2 out of three laps. Last year I finished in the field but kept thinking about my wife going into labor (actually, I was hoping she would so I could pull out of the race). Would this year be any different? I didn't have any expectations with the little bit of training I've had in the past month, but after the ride I did with some of my teammates up in the valley on Wednesday, I was at least optimistic that I could hang in the field.

"You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, ey, ey, ey" Augh!!!

Rolling with me in the Cat 4 field was Darrin Kert, Tim House, Marshall Leininger, Matt Turi, Don Bunker and entering his first Cat 4 race since receiving his upgrade was Frank Kolasa. The usual suspects lined up with us this morning and our field size looked to be about 35 guys strong. I knew the guys to really keep an eye on would be Paul Kinney from Orrville and Noah Gurney from Summit. After Noah's incredible performance at Zoar last weekend, I knew he was riding, as always with good form. Paul is always good. With Breakaway up front setting tempo as we rolled out of the parking lot, one of their riders road off the front to open up a decent little gap within the first few miles of the race. I never like to be just pack fill so it was very tempting to try to bridge across to him. I just kept telling myself that this is a 30 mile race and there is no way that someone is going to go solo for 30 miles. Not in a Cat 4 field. Mile after mile ticked by and this rider would be joined by others bridging up to him. What once was only one rider now looked to be five strong. Should I have tried to get across? I kept telling myself that the objective for the day was just to finish with the group so stay put and stay patient, it'll all come back. Sure enough, as we were finishing the first lap, enough riders felt that it was a worthy move that they tried to bridge up, only carrying the rest of the field with them. Ok, so I raced the first lap smart, saved a whole bunch of matches and now I was only looking at two more laps to go until the finish. Lapped two ticked away fairly uneventful with the exception of me marking Noah's attempt to get away. Fortunately, everyone was still together and Noah didn't try to push it too hard so I hadn't wasted too much energy in the effort. What it did do however was to put me up on the very front of the group. Not the place that I ever like to be, let alone when my whole strategy for the day was to simply stay protected in the group. There were several miles on this lap where I was pulling the group around. It finally dawned on me that it wasn't really my responsibility to pull everyone around as fast as I can at this stage of the race so why not sit up, pedal leisurely and if someone wants to go faster then they can come around me. It didn't take long until someone else got the message and in no time, I was back safely in the group.

Starting the third lap, things really slowed down. I heard a lot of chit-chat and I knew things were too easy, lets face it, I was still there and feeling pretty good. Looking around I saw that the whole group was essentially all together. Not sure why I didn't stick to my game plan at this point, probably because of this stinking "You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, ey, ey, ey" that was still rolling around in my mind but I decided to attack shortly after starting the third lap. It was my hope that maybe I'd get a shot at it but knowing that most guys had fresh legs back there, it would be no problem to chase me down. Sure enough, they were all over my move. I knew this move would probably be the death of my plan for staying with the field, but as most of you know by now, I'm not one to be content to just sit. I'd rather race aggressively and loose, then to just sit and loose. I want to say that I left it all out on the road, no matter what my fitness level might be. OK, back to the race. It was none other than Paul Kinney who came around me shortly after the field came back together. As we rolled into the right hand turn onto Egypt road, I rolled up beside him and said ..."Remember that time at the last Chapel Race where I said I didn't have enough to get around you? Well, I don't have a whole lot more today either." He just laughed. I like to play fair, he was putting in a tremendous effort and with six other teammates tucked safely in the field, I would have had no problem working with him to thin the group out. The only problem was I just needed a few more moments to recover which is something I never got as I saw the rest of the group beginning to pass me and then shortly leaving me behind to chase on my own. Well, I made it for almost 2 1/2 laps with the field. Happy for the day that I was able to truly race. I wish I could write about how exciting the finish was, but in all honesty, I really have no idea of how it even ended up playing out. Maybe someone reading this who knows can write a response letting me know more.

Thanks to Orrville for once again putting on a good race and thanks to my competitors for making it a safe one. We all finished upright which in my book makes a successful day. I hope to be back again next year, only with more fight in my legs. It was good to be back in the saddle racing again, it seems like its been a really long time.

Here's the power data from today's race.
brian

Duration: 1:19:48
Work: 1077 kJ
TSS: 120.6 (intensity factor 0.952)
Norm Power: 276
VI: 1.23
Distance: 30.01 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1003 225 watts
Heart rate: 88 182 161 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 94 rpm
Speed: 7.6 39.8 22.6 mph
Pace 1:30 7:55 2:40 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 401 73 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1405 203 lb-in

Letter to the Editor

2007-08-06T16:38:00.000-04:00

For anyone who knows me, they'll confirm that I'm normally a fairly quite and laid back person. Part of that is just my personality and the other part is that over the years I've learned that anytime I open my mouth, I typically say something stupid so its best just to keep it shut. Well, I've opened my mouth again, this time in a "Letter to the Editor" that I sent earlier today to the Akron Beacon Journal. For those reading this who may not live in Northeast Ohio, last Friday there was a report in the Media that one of the Cleveland Browns players tested positive for steroid use and would therefore be handed a four game suspension. I awoke Saturday morning and read the sports page to find the following article.

Akron Beacon Journal Article

After reading it, I was a little discouraged in the fact that the sports writer seemed to care more about the loss of the player for four weeks and what that did to the team in lieu of the fact that here was just one more sports star who was caught cheating. I was also upset that the mainstream media can only discuss cycling when there's a doping story or scandal taking place. When its a mainstream sport, its addressed very lackadaisically in an almost 'oops' sort of way. The difference must be due to the tremendous amount of money that is generated by the NFL versus what is done through cycling. For instance, Joe Thomas's (Brown's first round draft pick) 5 year deal that he signed with the brown is worth $42.5 million, $22 million of that is guaranteed money. Joe could afford to sponsor the Tour de France winning Discovery Squad which is seeking a new sponsor and which would only cost around $15 million. I'm as big of a football fan as anyone (O-H-I-O) but like so many others, I've become turned off by the multi-million dollar athletes who I don't think realize how good they have it. Consider this; Joe Thomas will get more guaranteed money, even if he never plays a game than the average American family will ever see in their lifetime. Forget one family, make that all my aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and friends combined.

The following is my letter which may or may not be published, but with the power of my blog, I'm able to make it public now.

Saturday’s story of Brown’s offensive lineman Ryan Tucker should have been entitled something more like “Cheater cheater pumpkin eater” since the article seemed to address the seriousness of steroid abuse fairly lightly. Nobody likes playing with the kid who cheats on the playground and that’s what Tucker did; cheat to gain a competitive edge over his colleagues in the NFL. It’s interesting that he was quoted as saying “….I am going to fulfill this punishment, if that’s what you want to call it, and get it behind me.” Ryan should consider himself lucky that he plays in a sport where the punishment for such offensives isn’t nearly as severe as an IOC regulated sport such as professional cycling or track and field. The penalty for such an offense if Tucker was a cyclist is that he would be immediately fired from the team (upon verification of the doping offense) and he would have been served a two year ban from competition. Upon completion of the ban, he then would serve two years playing in the ‘minor’ leagues before he could return to play the game at the highest level. In addition to all of that, professional cyclists are now required to pay back a year’s salary to their governing athletic bodies doping control program. Instead, Tucker will practice with his team, play in some preseason games and then sit out for four regulation games while not receiving a minimal portion of his multi-million dollar contract. You’re not alone Ryan in your assessment, this does not seem like much of a punishment to me either.

In the past month doping stories have plagued the sports world. The Tour De France saw several riders and teams be pulled from competition after riders were shown to test positive for banned substances. Currently on the west coast, Barry Bonds is trying to break Hank Aaron’s all time home record under a cloud of suspicion for using steroids. WWE Wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his family and committed suicide while reportedly suffering the effects of ‘Roid Rage’ and now the Ryan Tucker incident. These are just the latest in a long list of cheaters that begin to make it hard to cheer and support guys making more money in a single year than the average American will see in a lifetime. I applaud the NFL for conducting out of competition testing but as a sports fan I wish that the NFL in addition to MLB and the NBA would do more; certainly tougher penalties would go a long way in this effort.

In the future, I'm going to write an article that illustrates the differences between the UCI, NBA, NFL and MLB in terms of their anti-doping procedures and penalties. Until then.

brian

Where in the world is Brian?

2007-07-30T12:46:00.000-04:00

In one of my somewhat recent posts, I mentioned being absent from racing and blogging but that I was hoping to make a change. Well apparently that hasn't happened yet. I'm not really sure what is going on right now but I can't seem to get out of this rut of not being able to do any riding, let alone racing. Apparently, Life doesn't understand that this mediocre Cat4 racer needs substantial time on my bike to be at least somewhat competitive. With what used to be 4 or 5 days of riding per week has now trickled down to maybe one day...if I'm lucky.

At the end of last season, my goal for this year was to be riding well enough to upgrade to Cat 3.....maybe next year. I'm not complaining here (well, sort of I guess) as my ride time seems to have been replaced by more family time, working with my co-director at Elves & More on the upcoming bike giveaway and of course...work. I hope to somewhat salvage something of this season shortly but there are two races that I am committing myself to race in. One is the Orrville Smith's Dairy Milk Race in Mid-August and the other is Allied Decal's (Summit's) Fall Challenge. The guys at Orrville always put on a good event and since the route is mostly flat, I have a chance of at least hanging onto the back of the group. The Fall Challenge race course is about 5 miles from my house so it's hard to turn that one down, even considering all of the climbing that will be involved. Again, the guys at Allied Decals do so much for the sport in terms of all the events that they hold, that I like to make as many of their events as possible.

In addition to planning on racing in those two events, I'm currently back into training to compete in a 10k leg of the upcoming Akron Marathon. My office always has two teams in this fun event and for the past several years I have run the leg that goes from the University of Akron down to Sand Run Parkway. The last time I ran, I completed it in just over 43 minutes. This year my ambition is to run it in sub 40 minutes. Not sure how feasible this is but because of that aggressive goal, I've been doing a lot more running the past month then I typically like to do (which by the way, I don't really enjoy running). It's always at this time of the year when I always ask myself, why am I doing this and why didn't I just continue running throughout the year as then it wouldn't hurt so much. I never seem to learn my lesson because now I am trying to come back after not running for almost two years. Ouch.

Well, I'll do my best to keep my blog updated with some relevant info over the next few weeks until I can post another race report. Here's hoping that your season is going much better than mine.

brian

Boonen & Bettini Video

2007-07-16T09:31:00.000-04:00

Are these guys kidding me? This is just too good not to share. I found this at http://www.velocitynation.com/

Chapel Series - Race 1

2007-07-12T22:45:00.000-04:00

Thursday night began the first of a three race series hosted by The Chapel of Green. Having done this race the past two years, I looked forward to coming back out for a bit of good training as knowing where my fitness level is at, I had no ambitions other than working on raising my overall FTP. This race is a lot like the TOP series that I described in my last blog in that with a cheap entry fee, everyone seems to ride a little more relaxed and a little more tactfully. If nothing else, everyone knows that at least they’ll get a good picnic dinner at the end of the series for all of their hard work.

As has been my experience, the race usually consists of a majority of the peloton having riders from the three local teams, Stark Velo, Orrville and Rainbow Inks (Summit) with a handful of independents and first time racers sprinkled in there for good effect. Thursday night was no different with these three teams making up the majority of the field. Because three teams essentially control the race, the pattern has typically been in the past that somewhere during the first few laps (the race is 30 minutes + 5 laps) a break occurs with riders from all three in it which allows the field to settle down to let the break establish. I figured that would be the case once again for this race but I figured incorrectly. This race became a race of attrition where it was a fast and furious pace from start to finish. I was doing my best to keep myself upfront and attentive, trying to join moves, when I saw them happen but in no way was I going to initiate them as I that burns a whole lot of matches. I knew I was in trouble for the evening when I was trying to follow Paul Kinney’s (Orrville) wheel and I was struggling not to open up gaps. He kept looking for me to come around and help out but all I could do was shrug my shoulders, it was an effort just to stay in his draft. Man, how far had my fitness really fallen? With a soon to be small gap opening up in front of me, Doug Williams (Rainbow Inks) asked if I had anything left in the tank, and not having enough left to close it, I said no and moved over so I wasn't forcing all the guys behind me to burn unnecessary matches to close it back up. I think this came between 20 and 25 minutes of racing. We started the race with I believe 33 riders (some of those where riders who would be competing in the ‘A’ race who wanted to use this race to be noncompetitive and to warm up) and when it came time to contest the finish, I think there was only 6 left. At the time I fell off, I counted 9 other riders in front of me. If I could finish the race with nobody passing me, at least I could say I came in 10th pace…whatever good that does me. Although I didn’t finish with the group, I got out of the evening exactly what I wanted….good training. I’ll keep focusing now on my training which will hopefully get me a little closer to the finish line next week.

brian

Here's the data...

Duration: 40:05
Work: 620 kJ
TSS: 62.7 (intensity factor 0.969)
Norm Power: 281
VI: 1.09
Distance: 15.414 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1002 258 watts
Heart rate: 96 205 168 bpm
Cadence: 32 141 98 rpm
Speed: 2.9 28.7 23.1 mph
Pace 2:05 20:59 2:36 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 320 75 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 948 225 lb-in

TOP Series - Franklin Twp. Road Race

2007-07-08T14:39:00.000-04:00

I've been absent lately. Not riding much and certainly not blogging much. Here's one of the reasons why: Jen and I found ourselves in a position a few weeks ago where we had found a house in the area that we really, really liked. It had everything that we decided the 'next' house should have. To make the story somewhat short, we knew that there were a lot of projects around our house that had been neglected for the past few years that we needed to quickly finish up in order to get our house ready to be put on the market. So for the past several weeks, I've been busy doing things like hanging and finishing drywall, painting, etc. instead of riding. Well, we put an offer on the new house, a fair offer I might add, but they didn't accept it....so, with that we decided we liked our house well enough that we wanted to hang out here for awhile longer (unless the Owner of the for sale property comes back to reality)and get back to living life.

Barely even seeing my bike the past few weeks, I decided it was time to dust it off if I wanted to salvage something from this season. Normally when I take a big chunk of time off the bike, I like to ramp back into my training but instead I thought it would be nice to do a test on where my current fitness is(or lack of fitness). I decided what better way to do a test than to jump into a race. Today's TOP race would be the perfect place. This race also fell on the same day as the State Road race so figuring all the heavy hitters would be down south battling it out, I figured that the pain level for today would be somewhat tolerable (somewhere between watching reruns of "The Simple Life" and "The View". Summit Freewheelers do a great job of putting on these local races. If you have the opportunity to fit these into your schedule I highly recommend it. First off, they only cost $5 which is a bargain in today's world and secondly because they only cost $5, the field is usually a little more relaxed and willing to play and try tactics which makes the races that much more enjoyable.

This morning's race in Franklin Twp. is part of one of my training routes, the Portage County White Trash Ride (PCWTR) so I knew the route extremely well. The course is deceptively difficult because there are so many rollers out there. Nothing too big that they can't be powered over, but considering the race would be a minimum of 6 laps, it would take careful planning, conservation and strategy to maintain some power for the end of the race should it end in a bunch kick. My only ambition for the day would be to just ride wheels and hang onto the group. If I finished with the field, than I would consider that a victory for me. The only heavy hitter to join us that I was familiar with was Ed Delgros from Summit. I've heard a lot about him from reading Thor's race entries so I knew he would be tough and would make it much more than a normal training ride for us. My hope was that he would decide early on that he wanted some TT practice and take a solo flier off the front and leave the rest of us for a casual ride back to the finish line. Well, Ed did try several times but there were always interested people in the group willing to bring him back, bringing my pain level closer towards the "simple life" on my scale.

Half way into the race, I lost touch with the group and found myself dangling a few meters off the back. Slowly I saw the selective group leaving me behind. I tried and tried to catch back on but could never find the extra little oomph to do it. Funny thing is I can remember thinking that ok, at least I hung on this long and I was happy to ride the remainder of the race solo. After half a lap of riding solo, I noticed that they were coming back to me. Great! They slowed up just enough and I had maintained my tempo enough that they were well within a distance that I could bridge back up to them. So, pushing my tempo that much more, I finally managed to bridge back up to the group. Down to the last lap and a half, I decided to suck wheel, recover and see what can happen. As we were coming into the finishing stretch, I started to move myself up the right hand side of the group to make a move. I was sitting third wheel and was just about to go for it off the front when another rider beat me to it. The group chased hard and I was left with me legs telling me....see what would have happened if you tried to do that? Yep, my legs were done but I'm glad that I finished the race exactly how I had hoped to, with the group, sort of.

Here's the data for the day:

brian

Road Race:
Duration: 1:37:30
Work: 1365 kJ
TSS: 146 (intensity factor 0.948)
Norm Power: 275
VI: 1.18
Distance: 37.321 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 898 233 watts
Heart rate: 102 184 166 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 91 rpm
Speed: 8.6 37.4 23.0 mph
Pace 1:36 6:57 2:37 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 343 71 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1231 216 lb-in

My Cervelo Video

2007-06-27T07:31:00.001-04:00

Well, since the fine folks at Cervelo have apparently missed my genius in regards to my video entry, I am no longer in the running for the grand prize. For those who may have missed it...here it is.

brian

Vote for Brian!

2007-06-21T07:44:00.001-04:00

As everyone knows by reading my regular blog entries, I’m a somewhat avid cyclist who sometimes takes my love for riding bikes somewhat too far (i.e. trying to find bike races to compete in while I was in Mexico with Jen on our 10 year wedding anniversary trip for instance). Anyway, the bike that I’m riding (Cervelo) is holding a competition entitled “Tell us why you like your Cervelo.” Always loving a competition and not wanting to let a sweet opportunity go by without at least entering, I have put together a quick 15 second commercial stating why I really like this bike. My commercial has been chosen by Cervelo as one of their finalists so if you all don’t mind helping out, I’m begging you for your vote. Here is the link to the website where you will find the screen shot below. Just click on my entry (highlighted in red in this image on the far right and you’ll be able to see my high quality production as well as vote that you absolutely love it….hopefully that’s what you vote for. The winner of the competition gets of all things; the video played during the three week Tour de France on Versus (formerly OLN) as well as a one week trip to this years tour. Together, we can make this poor boy from Hartville’s dream of going to France a reality! I've also seen here in the office that the playback is a little choppy based upon how much bandwidth we have. I'll post the video shortly on the blog but in the meantime, lets pretend this is American Idol and vote and get all of your friends, family and coworkers to vote!

brian

Summer Solstice (Sunday's Stage)

2007-06-11T21:44:00.000-04:00

After I blasted this stage race for the lack of organization and safety, I thought it would be awhile before I did another OVR race let alone come back for this series. If it wasn't for some teammates who were doing it and the fact that I was already down in Columbus, I would have been completely satisfied staying home for the weekend doing a little training ride and working with Nicholas on riding his bike without training rides. Regardless, I was happy to be joining Darrin Kert and Chris Smith this morning on the stages longest race, 64 miles. I have yet to try a road race this long in my short career, and in fact I only have one ride of that length all year long back in April when we were down in Boone. Although a little short on training miles for the year, I was feeling confident that I had plenty of fitness in my legs to help Darrin keep his third place in the overall GC. Darrin and Chris both brought me up to speed on who to watch and how the race would probably play out. They mentioned that the PH+B team? (not sure who they are or what that means) would most likely start things off fast but after a few miles settle into a comfortable rhythm. Sure enough, from the start line these guys lit it up and I’m beginning to think I hope these guys slow down a little bit because this is not my ideal way of warming. Sure enough, they did and I was able to recover.

Continuing to work on my positioning in the field, I quickly made my way up front to safer grounds and also to keep an eye on things. Several moves were made but it being the first lap of the race, they were destined to come back. It wasn't until the second lap of the race where things began to heat up. I had just come off the front of the field where I had been pulling them for several miles. (I don’t like pulling everyone around and it’s not that I wanted to do that much work, it’s just that nobody else was interested in doing anything. At one point I was literally riding at 16 mph but nobody had any interest in coming around, lazy bastards they were stuck to my wheel like Paris Hilton is now stuck to her cell mate. Anyway, it was just after we made the right hand turn onto the one lane road that a rider from Team Anthem made a move off the front. Being the closest, I made the move to grab his wheel immediately. I figured that the field was on us but when I looked back, we had a little gap on the field. It was at this point that I looked and this guy and made the decision not to put any effort into holding onto his wheel or making the move stick. I can’t believe that I did it because normally I’m all about the breakaways but he didn't seem strong enough to stay away for another 3 ½ laps and I didn't want to burn my entire match book trying to make this move stick so with the field only a few seconds behind me, I sat up and waited for them expecting a hearty chase effort. I expected a chase, but it would take awhile for it to develop. Turns out there were a ton of these Anthem guys in the field and the other team I mentioned (PH+B?) was working with those guys. So essentially, out of a field of about 45 guys, 10 of them were racing as one team. I suspect that there were a few others who joined into this alliance but that’s bike racing I guess. Normally being a quiet guy, I started running my mouth to see why people weren't working. One guy responded back to me with a “Why do you care?” My response was I’m hear to race to win, not for second but what I was thinking was that I’d like to know how large of a team or alliance was working together. Was it 5 guys, 10 guys or 15 guys? (As a side note, I can also be somewhat spiteful so I was happy to see that this guy would roll in to the finish at the back of the field). Not knowing where the breakaway rider stood on GC, I felt that it would probably be a smart thing to bring him back into the group. I was really kicking myself now because here I was burning matches like they were going out of style to bring him back where I really could have been burning that energy trying to make the break work if only I had stuck with the earlier move. So, with determination not to get burned by this possible poor decision, I tried to make a bridging move up to him. When I looked back to see if I had made a dent, I had the entire field on my wheel. Here I was, trying to get someone to work and all they could do was follow. It was beginning to tick me off so pulling my best Mary Ellen move, I put my head down and began hammering. If they were going to ride my wheel, I was bound to make them suffer. Darrin tells me that when I did this, the group was all strung out and working hard to stay with me. I’m glad I did my job well.

Doing that burned a few matches but I was bound and determined to bring him back. I got him back to within 10 meters and then figuring someone would pull it back since we were so close, I pulled over. Funny thing, those guys sat up as well and what was at that point only a few seconds worth of a gap, opened quickly back up to 40 seconds. So running my mouth once more, I think I said something like “Lets have some fun, lets work hard to pull him back to within a few seconds again, and then let him go.” People just stared at me. I think next time I’m going to start foaming at the mouth and sing some Partridge Family tunes so I become known as “The crazy kid” in the peloton, that way people will give me some space in the field. It took a solid lap and a half for that rider to come back. I don’t think it was that we were trying to bring him back, because we weren't, it was just because he had cracked. The rest of the race became fairly uneventful in the sense that several moves were tried; some by me but all came back. It looked like unless there was a miracle, it would come down to a bunch sprint. Rolling into the final few hundred meters, I tried making up some position as I had begun drifting backwards in my tired state. Standing up and moving forward reinforced that my legs were done for the day, I had nothing left in the tank to contest the sprint.

Although I rolled in near the back of the group, I’m really pleased in how I raced today. First off, I helped to protect a friends place on GC. Secondly, the fact that I was able to finish this race after how active I was in the group, made me feel really good about where my fitness is currently at. If how I felt physically after the race was any indication, than this was by far the hardest race that I think I have ever done. Sitting here at 9:30 at night, my legs still ache, I still can’t quench my thirst and I want to get some sleep.

Here’s the data from today’s race:
brian

Duration: 2:39:35
Work: 2124 kJ
TSS: 220.9 (intensity factor 0.911)
Norm Power: 264W
VI: 1.19
Distance: 60.516 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1240 222 watts
Heart rate: 114 185 161 bpm
Cadence: 30 141 93 rpm
Speed: 10.3 35.9 22.7 mph
Pace 1:40 5:51 2:38 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 380 65 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1309 201 lb-in

Race for Alex

2007-06-03T21:51:00.000-04:00

This was the first opportunity I have had to participate in the Race for Alex held by MVC. Not knowing much about the race, I asked everyone I knew what their thoughts were. I kept hearing good things like good roads, lots of rollers, decent sized fields and well marshaled corners; everything I like to hear about a race I'm going to jump into. After a rainy, story drive over to Crestwood, the skies settled down as we drove into the parking lot in time to register, change and get a few moments start up. Normally when you have a chance for bad weather, the race attendance drops off significantly (I’m guilty of hitting the snooze button when I see its raining outside as well) but not today. Today’s Cat4/Cat 5 field had around 60 riders in it, by far the largest race I’ve been in for the year. Racing for Stark Velo this morning was Tim House, Marshall Leininger, Chris Smith and our honorary Velo from Chicago, Patrick Papczun.

Between work, vacation and family the past few weeks or maybe even month now has been crazy in terms of getting enough training in. With the exception of the team's Tuesday night training rides, I haven't done any high intensity training and I've noticed that my legs haven't been responding the way they have in the past so with no great expectations for what I could do, I went into this race just wanting to put in a good test for where my current fitness level stands and work on my positioning in the field. Someone once told me “If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving back.” I’ve been trying to keep those words in my mind recently as I’ve been racing because I’ve been guilty more than once of finding myself quickly in the back of the group and then not being able to get myself back up to where I should really be racing. So with those words in my mind again this morning, I worked hard to keep myself within the top 10 positions for the majority of the race and was for the most part, successful. Only at one point mid-race did I get squeezed to the back and with wanting to obey the “yellow line” rule, it took me nearly an entire lap to get myself back up to the front.

So enough about my strategy thoughts and more to the race. Thankfully the race started off slowly this morning as I didn’t nearly have enough warm up time. It was Joel from Orrville who threw down the first glove as we made the right hand turn onto Kelly Park Rd. and started climbing back up the small succession of rollers halfway through the first lap. My legs responded nicely in the chase effort and in no time, we were all back together. After two trips around the course, it became apparent that the breakaway attempts would play out like this: at the one spot where Joel previously tried to and also on Crestview Road just after you pass over the railroad tracks and start climbing back up towards Fairfield School Road. I know that this is bike racing, but I’m not sure how I feel about attacking at railroad tracks. Maybe if they were as smooth as butter it would be one thing, but tracks where it’s safer to bunny hop over than ride because they’re in such bad condition is another. In any case, I don’t think we had any incidents other than a few lost water bottles in the effort. Safely in the race and maintaining my position well, I decided that if the opportunity arose, I’d try and make a move of my own. My decision however was not to try it where everyone else was going, but instead to try it over on the climb on Middleton Road. I liked this location was because it was gradual it was one of the longest climbs. I also liked that at the top of the hill there was an immediate right hand turn onto Kirk Rd. and then another right hand turn shortly after onto Crestview Road. I figured if you could get enough of a gap on the hill, the momentum going into the turns along with the fact that the group would slow down there might be enough to get away. Unfortunately, I never found myself in the right place at that point of the race to try it, usually I was back around 8th or 9th or I was leading the chase, two of the places that aren’t really all that ideal for attacking as I’d be blowing too much energy to get away. So, with me not making an attempt it came to sitting in until the finishing sprint. (This is somewhat out of order, but there was a nice breakaway attempt by a rider and team that I’m unfamiliar with. He lasted out there for just over a lap but with a lot of effort by mostly Stark Velo riders, he came back). Going into the right hand turn onto Kirk Road, I heard Tim behind me saying drill it on the inside of the corner and lets move a little further up, which is what we did. Only one more turn left. I tried the same tactic and was somewhat successful but I found myself somewhat trapped as I approached a rider who didn’t have enough left in his legs to contest the win. By the time I got around him, I found myself once at 5th or 6th now back around 13th place. I was able to pull a few of those guys back to finish in 11th place.

It was a good day for Stark Velo riders. We worked really well as a team and were active near the front for a lot of the race. Chris took another win for the year, Patrick took third place in only his second race Tim took sixth place and of course I took 11th. I achieved my goals for the day, worked hard to keep good positioning and tested my fitness. Although I’m still a little off from where I’d like to be at this time of year, I’m happy in knowing that my fitness isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was. I guess I have no more excuses but to just get out and ride more.

Here are the stats for the day. Once again my normalized power is getting close to 300 watts. I will start to throw in much more intensity now into my training to push that up to try and get ready for some key races this month.

Duration: 56:29
Work: 789 kJ
TSS: 99.2 (intensity factor 1.027)
Norm Power: 298
VI: 1.28
Distance: 21.962 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1175 233 watts
Heart rate: 80 188 167 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 98 rpm
Speed: 2.7 39.3 23.3 mph
Pace 1:32 22:27 2:34 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 350 71 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1091 201 lb-in

brian

Race at the Lakes Pictures

2007-05-09T08:52:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Scott Thor for taking a few pictures of the Cat 4 race.
brian

Race at the Lakes #3

2007-05-05T21:14:00.000-04:00

This morning was the third race of the Race at the Lakes series presented by Allied Decals. Lining up for Stark Velo in a field of just over 30 riders was Matt Turi, Erik Lesco, Marshall Leininger, Darrin Kert, Tim House, Jim Flesher and of course myself. The plan for the day was to sit in for the first five or six laps, and let others control the race. After five laps, we'd wait to see what would happen, most likely not initiate any moves but try to cover, go with them or when brought back, counter attack. My idea was that the only way a breakaway was going to work here is if the attacks were relentless and the field became too tired to chase them down. Early into the race the need to implicate the plan almost wasn't necessary when a very good looking breakaway of four riders, one of them being Darrin occurred. Since the majority of the well represented teams for the day were present, I figured this was as good as gone. My suspicion was reinforced when you could feel the tempo of the field begin to slow to give the breakaway a fighting chance. And then....one rider, lets just say his first name rhymes with Lug decided to chase down the break, even though he had a teammate in it. Not sure if he didn't trust his teammate to stick with the move, he was greedy and wanted to get up there as well or just didn't know it was sort of bad form to chase down your teammate, but in no time, we were all chasing this rider down and therefore bringing the breakaway riders back.

A lap or two later, I decided to test the waters a little bit, not by attacking, but slowly riding off the front of the field. I didn't have any expectations of getting away, but just wanted to speed things up as the field seemed to be slowing down. I was brought back by the time we reached the start/finish line. Once back in the protection of the group, I decided to really try to attack again and hope this time that someone comes with me. Once we reached the parking lot, I attacked off the right side of the group just like I did in the first race of the series. And just like the first race, they would catch me on the climb. Needing to recover for the upcoming finish, I quickly found a wheel I could hold onto with the hopes of recovering fast enough to try one more attack. My goal for the day was to attack, attack and attack. I'm not able to race next week so I didn't want to leave anything in my legs today. Turns out, I wouldn't get that other opportunity to attack as my mind was telling me to sit in for the finish and try my luck then. I should have tried to make another move because that last lap became really sketchy with people fighting for position and I ended up getting pushed off the road. At the end of the day, I was satisfied that I finished upright which in the end is the most important thing but still I felt a little disappointed that I didn't leave it all out on road. Next race I guess.

Here's the stats for the day:

Duration: 49:01
Work: 725 kJ
TSS: 85 (intensity factor 1.02)
Norm Power: 296
VI: 1.2
Distance: 19.845 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1040 246 watts
Heart rate: 30 188 168 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 99 rpm
Speed: 4.1 34.8 24.3 mph
Pace 1:43 14:38 2:28 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 363 70 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 982 208 lb-in

And the winner is....

2007-05-03T12:26:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I wrote a post looking for some assistance in determining the final location for our vacation this year (choices were New York City, Canadian Rockies, Grand Canyon and Nor Cal). With an outstanding turnout in the polls, reminiscent of any election, 2 out of the 4 votes received indicated that the Canadian Rockies would be the place that we would be heading to. So with that, I am pleased to announce that this year, the Miner's (sans children) will be heading to.......Riviera Maya, Mexico! I know, I know, that wasn't one of the original choices but I did throw in there a little disclaimer that I reserved the right to change my mind at any time, which is what I am doing now.

Why the change you may say? Well, why would we want to celebrate 10 glorious years of marriage by hiking and swatting at mosquito's, running from bears, etc. in the mountains when we can spend it by simply laying on the beach just "Maxin and Relaxin" as Billy Dee Williams used to say on those Colt 45 commercials.

brian

Covered Bridge Series (Team Akron)

2007-04-29T21:32:00.000-04:00

This race series has always been one of my favorites. It's hard to turn down a road race that's only a few miles from my house and that's on some of my favorite training roads, so when I saw Brad Hanson was bringing the series back, I knew I would do my best to include as many of these races as possible on my calendar. This morning I was joined in the Cat 4 field (B race) with fellow Velo's Marshall Leininger, Chris Smith, new velo Jason Leaman and honorary member from Chicago, Pat Papczun. This was Pat's first race but anyone who's gone to Boone with us the past two years will tell you that this guy can ride and I would put him up against anyone in our field and probably most people in the A race if he had a little bit of racing experience.

Our field had about 40 people which from what I hear was a little smaller than the field size last weekend. I told Pat that the first lap would probably be pretty mellow but I turned out wrong as a couple of Orrville riders opened up a small gap early into the first lap and it was an all out chase from there to bring them back. With them safely back in the group, it would be one small attack after the other, but nothing would get away for the day. There was a strong wind coming out of the west, probably a little too strong for the small groups of two or three riders trying to get away to really make any progress so it looked like this race would come down to a bunch sprint. Going into the bell lap, I decided it was time to make my way back up front and keep myself there. Shortly after, a PDQ rider made a strong move off the front and quickly opened up a decent gap on us. Pat made a great effort and in no time he bridged up to the rider. Pat then went past him and started a solo effort with a half lap to go. Once on Riverview, the strong winds took their toll on him and we slowly started to bring him and the PDQ rider back into the group. As we neared the little climb on Riverview Rd, that PDQ rider from the breakaway exploded in front of me which caused me to get stuck behind him and allowing everyone behind me to come around. Just a few seconds earlier I was riding in the top 8 positions, now I was finding myself at the back of the field, trying to chase hard to work my way back up the front of the group. Not wanting to be one of those riders who exploits the yellow line rule to make up position, I decided not to go left of center and wait until I found an opportunity and an opening to come up through. That opportunity didn't happen until only a few hundred meters before the finish line when I was able to go on the far left and make up some spots, not enough to contest the wind but enough for me to at least finish in the top 15 places and to see Chris Smith sprinting for the victory.

At the end of the race, I was satisfied with my performance, disappointed that I couldn't have kept myself in better position for the finish, but happy that I felt decent with what seemed like an entire week off the bike.

Here's the data from today's race:
Duration: 1:09:56 (1:13:46)
Work: 962 kJ
TSS: 106.6 (intensity factor 0.957)
Norm Power: 278
VI: 1.21
Distance: 27.056 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1104 229 watts
Heart rate: 101 200 154 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 100 rpm
Speed: 2.7 35.5 23.2 mph
Pace 1:41 21:57 2:35 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 378 70 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1547 193 lb-in

Race at the Lakes #1

2007-04-21T21:44:00.000-04:00

This morning started with Nicholas waking up earlier than normal to watch his favorite TV show, Grossology. This gave me the opportunity to spend a few minutes with him before heading over to Munroe Metro Park to race the first week of the Race at the Lakes Series. The only reason I bother to bring this up is because on the way out the door, he says to me, have fun, make sure you win a trophy and that if I win a trophy, he'll be very proud of me. Where does a four year old learn this stuff? Must be from his mother! Time to have a little talk with him about sportsmanship and the thrill of competition.

Riding in the Cat 4's today for Stark Velo were Tim House, Marshall Leininger, Darrin Kert, Matt Turi and of course myself. The plan for today was to let Summit drive the pace as they came to the start line with about a bazillion riders and they are always very ambitious at their home race. This year, Summit made a change in the start finish lines and moved the finish to the hill on the backside of the course. This was done to try to eliminate some of the nasty crashes that have happened on the course. I have to admit that at first, I was a little sceptical of the new layout but after racing today, I will admit that I think this was a good move. (Note that for a truly safe race, I thought it would be better to just eliminate the parking lot section all together and just ride on the park roads).

So back to the race. The race was typical for the Cat 4's at RATL, sit, chase down everything and wait until the final for the sprint. Today's race played out exactly like this with several people trying to get off the front, it coming back, and then waiting until someone would try it again. One of those times was on one lap to go when Noah (Allied Decals) and one of his teammates got off the front. A chase was of course underway which was led by Tim. Coming into the parking lot Tim brought him back and I decided that I wasn't going to let his effort go in vain so at the moment we caught the first rider in the breakaway, I launched off the front. My hopes were to bridge up to Noah and work with him but I shot right past and before I knew it I had a healthy little gap on my hands. Maybe today would be the day I would bring that first place trophy home for Nicholas but at that very moment, all I could do was concentrate on getting to the finish line first. All that stood between me and certain glory, at least in my own mind, was two small little rises in the pavement (After Boone, I can no longer classify this as a climb). With the first rise finished, I was on the false flat section; suffering of course and just as I began the second little climb, I heard and then saw the pack catch me. I was that breakaway rider you always see getting swept up by the field in the final few meters before the finish.

Here's the data from today's race:
Duration: 51:53
Work: 712 kJ
TSS: 89.7 (intensity factor 1.019)
Norm Power: 296
VI: 1.29
Distance: 20.405 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 974 229 watts
Heart rate: 128 189 167 bpm
Cadence: 30 141 99 rpm
Speed: 4.7 34.5 23.6 mph
Pace 1:44 12:52 2:32 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 298 66 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1259 191 lb-in

brian

Boone Training Camp

2007-04-18T12:25:00.000-04:00

Last week marked the 2nd annual Stark Velo Boone Training camp. Having also been on the trip last year I knew fully what I was getting myself into and still, I was excited to go back and tackle the mountains. This years trip really exploded in terms of the number of riders going which was exciting to see such a big interest from my fellow teammates and hopefully for all the firs timer's, they would enjoy this trip as much as I did.

Thursday's ride was a quick warm up after sitting in a car for 8+ hours. We unfortunately got started a little later than planned which meant we would be chasing daylight to get back to the cabins in time. This day's adventure would be navigating Payne-Branch road to the Parkway. Last year the road was hard pack which made for a fun-off road adventure but this year the road department recently dumped a ton of fresh gravel on the road making it very difficult to navigate through on skinny tires. By the time we got out of the gravel pit and to the Parkway, 5 out of our 25 riders suffered flat tires. Fortunately, I wasn't one of them.

Stats from Thursday's Ride:

Duration: 2:19:30
Work: 1675 kJ
TSS: 165.1 (intensity factor 0.844)
Norm Power: 245
VI: 1.22
Distance: 36.868 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 631 201 watts
Heart rate: 64 178 153 bpm
Cadence: 30 141 83 rpm
Speed: 0 44.7 15.9 mph
Pace 1:21 0:00 3:47 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 605 117 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 986 212 lb-in

Friday's ride offered two route options, the short route coming in at 64 miles and the long route at over 90 miles. Knowing the difficulty I and several others had last year, I decided early on that I would give myself a fighting chance of completing the day and just ride the short route. Once again, the day started out like the previous day with several flat tires but once those gotten take care of, it was smooth sailing all the way to the day's biggest climb, Beech Mountain. Never having ridden Beech, I had no idea what I was about to undertake. The climb would be by far the most difficult of the trip due to its steepness (average grade of ~11%) but because it was only about 3 miles in length, it wouldn't be difficult. The beauty of my powertap (note that I will not get all PT geeky here) was that knowing what my FTP was, I set a sustained power output goal for each of the major climbs that I wanted to stay near. Knowing that I currently have a FTP of around 290 Watts, I set my climbing range to try to stay between 260W and 280W. This turned out to be a great approach to all the climbs that I did; even as the day went along I never found myself in extreme difficulty but always found myself situated within the group. This was a nice change of pace from last year where I seemed to be continually suffering on each and every climb as well as being the last guy up the hill. On the last climb of the day, Schull's Mill, I even found myself for a while off the front of the group, until Stuart came by and passed me. Even though I got beat up the hill, it was a blast to try and stick with him (and I hear rumors that I even pushed Stuart a little bit as he didn't want to get caught!) and to have been the second one to complete the day's climb. It was almost so much fun that I contemplated for a split second descending it just to do it again. Actually, I just wanted to descend it and I would have called Jen to come pick me up so I didn't have to do it again.

Friday's Stats:

Duration: 4:12:05
Work: 2730 kJ
TSS: 265.8 (intensity factor 0.798)
Norm Power: 231
VI: 1.27
Distance: 60.909 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 540 182 watts
Heart rate: 70 176 145 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 82 rpm
Speed: 0 43 14.5 mph
Pace 1:24 0:00 4:08 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 598 121 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 851 198 lb-in

Saturday's ride saw our large group split into two different areas of the State. The majority of the group decided to pack up the van and trailer and to head 30 miles south. The thought was that the radar showed rain for the day everywhere but if it was going to rain, better to be at a lower elevation where it would be warmer. The other group of riders which was mostly composed of people in my cabin decided not to give up on Boone and risk riding in the area (Note that we also didn't realize what time people were leaving and when we got a phone call to go, most of us were just then rolling out of bed...oops). So, after a good, relaxed breakfast, about 10 of us kitted up and slowly rolled our way out to the main road to find our way to the small town of Todd. Scott did a great job of mapping the routes for us so feeling comfortable with where we were heading to, we didn't think twice about venturing out alone. The first issue came in about 6 miles into the ride when we were supposed to find a parkway connector road off of the small back road we had been traveling on for a while. A few miles and hills down the road, we made the right decision to stop and ask for directions. I rolled up to a gentleman who was out using a weed-whacker to mow his lawn. Finally getting his attention, I asked how to get back to the Parkway. Unfortunately, his response was more like "Parkway, no speak English good." OK, time for plan B, I took two years of French in High School, one year of Spanish is College, one and a half years of Italian in College and I also traveled through Italy so having tackled every one of the romance languages, I was sure I could break through this language barrier and get our group rolling in the right direction. Second problem, native Spanish speakers speak muy rapido mi amigo and all I could translate was, and I'm still not sure about this but it was either we were way off target to finding the Parkway or that he really thought I looked good in cycling shorts with shaved legs and he wanted me to hang out for a cerveza. OK, so I decided for my safety that it was time to roll back up to where we had seen the Parkway and take our chances elsewhere.

Rolling back towards where we had seen the parkway, we finally found that critical turn we needed to make. It was marked with a small broken piece of wood that was hand painted with the word "Parkw" on it. That would end up being the biggest challenge of the day as would find ourselves rolling smoothly on the Parkway back to our turn around point in Todd. We did a portion of this route last year and I really enjoyed it because even though we were still doing some climbing, it wasn't the constant up and down that we did yesterday. Instead, the climbs on the parkway tend to be long, gradual and are very scenic which is why this is a favorite destination for several travelers.

Saturday's Stats:

Duration: 3:26:30
Work: 2084 kJ
TSS: 205.1 (intensity factor 0.775)
Norm Power: 225
VI: 1.32
Distance: 53.84 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 548 170 watts
Heart rate: 73 236 134 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 83 rpm
Speed: 0 42.6 15.8 mph
Pace 1:25 0:00 3:49 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 569 98 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 817 180 lb-in

Well, that raps another successful year for the Stark Velo training camp. I'm left at the end of this year satisfied in how much riding I did and how I felt on the bike. What makes this year different from last is that I'm anxious to go back again, only hoping that I can wait for a whole year. What makes this trip so much fun? Well, for one thing it's the great riding that this area of the country has to offer. The second and most important thing is, it gives me the opportunity to bond with my teammates and friends as this is the only time of the year that I get to ride and converse with almost everyone at the same time.

brian

Malabar Farms Road Race

2007-04-01T22:11:00.000-04:00

With the Boone Training camp only a week and a half away, I had debated on whether I wanted to race this weekend or not. On one hand, I haven't raced since last August at the Milk Race, but on the other hand I have yet to do anything longer than a two hour ride outdoors and with big days down south right around the corner, I was contemplating putting in a long training ride. In the end, it came down to a simple question from Scott Thor that settled my dilemma...."What's your power meter telling you?" Oh yea, I almost forgot about that thing. Scott said if I was within 10% of what I was producing last year, than he suggested going ahead and racing. Well, my power meter was telling me to race because I'm consistently producing more power on all of my workouts. So with that decision made, it was time to pack the bags and get ready to race!

This was my first time ever racing at Malabar but knowing that the State road race was going to be held on the same course, I figured what better way to preview it than during an actual race. All I knew was that there was supposedly one big hill that was the real killer. No one remembered to mention that there were a ton of little rollers scattered throughout the course, that was something that I found during a preview lap with John, Scott and Rick. Knowing that I was no where in the same league yet to race with those guys to race in the Cat 3/4 field, I opted to race with the Cat 4/5's. Joining me from Stark Velo were Matt Turi, Tim House, Marshall Leininger and newcomer to the team, Josh Troche. The Cat 4/5 field was big, I would have to guess somewhere between 40 and 50 people racing. That was a shocker for me to see so many people so early in the season but maybe that's because I don't typically race until mid April.

The race started off somewhat mellow, all taking the first climb as directed...neutral. After that, it picked up as we started making our way through the rollers. I was feeling fairly good but I remembered at this point that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and that was only one waffle. I guess this first race through me off schedule and I had forgotten to follow my usual pre-race routine. Time to down a little gel and drink to help me get through. The first two laps were fairly uneventful, I was hanging comfortably within the group but didn't feel comfortable to try anything, but neither did anyone else. The last time up the 'big' climb and I let a small gap open up between me and the main field. Time to chase and chase and chase. Unfortunately, all my chasing was in vain because I never caught the group. There were times where I could still see them, but there was no way that I was going to catch them. My only hope was to catch a few of the stragglers ahead of me and at least make it back to the finish a little sooner. First I picked up an Orville rider, I think it was Joel but I forgot to confirm...sorry. Next it was a Team Echelon rider and finally a team breakaway rider. That was actually the most fun part of the race just flying back with those guys to the finish in a nice working paceline. Made me wish we were working that well off the front of the group instead of at the back of the field.

At the end of the day, yes I didn't finish with the group but I did finish with both wheels upright which in my book is a good day. Check out my power stats below. I took a look at my race data from last year and there were only two races that had numbers higher than this. One was a time trial I did during the Summer Solstice stage race and the other was at Snitger's. Ouch, this was a tough day but I was happy to see that I was able to produce these types of numbers.

brian

Malabar Farms Race:
Duration: 1:31:30
Work: 1263 kJ
TSS: 152.1 (intensity factor 0.999)
Norm Power: 284
VI: 1.23
Distance: 31.192 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 819 230 watts
Heart rate: 78 203 163 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 89 rpm
Speed: 0 38 20.5 mph
Pace 1:35 0:00 2:56 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 409 95 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 925 221 lb-in

Another pic from the Arizona campers.

2007-02-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Scott for sending me this picture of an Arizona local that they met yesterday on the rest day. Ladies, this guy is apparently looking for a little lovin'. His interests are long romantic walks on the beach, reading his comic books and braiding his mothers hair.

Dreaming away...

2007-02-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

Ever wondered what people are dreaming? Here's a look at what Rick has going in his mind at this moment. Sugar plums have nothing on the Double Whopper!

Behind the Scenes at the Arizona Training Camp

2007-02-27T12:09:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Dan's fellow campers didn't appreciate him winning the KOM yesterday on Mt. Lemmon and have resorted to some mighty cut-throat tactics to level the playing field....

Having a little fun....

2007-02-26T17:37:00.000-05:00

All of my friends out in Arizona right now, decided so send me some pictures from their warm and sunny training camp just to let me know what I was missing. I'm sure they won't mind, but I decided to take some liberty with the pictures they've sent back...... more to come.

brian

Playing with video

2007-02-26T09:59:00.000-05:00

2006 Season in Review

2007-02-16T13:06:00.000-05:00

The nice thing about having a Power Tap is that it allows you to step back and look at your season from an almost scientific viewpoint rather than trying to remember by feel what I was going through during any given part of the season. One of the benefits about being friends with Scott Thor is he can make some pretty cool images for you if you ask nicely and send him a little data. Thanks to Scott for putting the images together for me. Below is a chart that shows my TSS (Training Stress Score) rolling totals for the 2006 season. I’ve highlighted some key points on these to try and put some reason to why things look the way they do. (You will want to click on the image to make it larger for you to view the fine points).

One thing I want to make mention of is the loss of my power tap for several weeks. That didn’t mean I stopped riding while it was back at the shop, that just meant I wasn’t collecting data which explains why all three values above drop sharply off. Unfortunately, Cycling Peaks doesn’t allow me to manually insert my workouts so I regrettably have to interpolate my data for the remainder of the season. This is a good reason to have a backup PT, now if I could only convince my wife!

To further complicate things, Scott has included for me a chart showing my Peak Normalized Power for the 2006 season. The interesting thing is that my peak FTP for the season (314 Watts) comes after my goal event. After that event, I honestly let up on my structured training program and went more to riding with my buddies in lieu of the interval workouts I had been doing previously. I would theorize that if I had stuck with the program further into the year, that I could have been able to push that FTP up higher, or at least kept it a little more stable as it begins to show a slight downward slope.

This chart showing my ATL, CTL and TSB. Together, I could have used this to predict and tailor my peaks a little more accurately.

So what does all of this really mean? That’s a good question and I’m not sure if I fully know or understand yet how I will fully use this information for my 2007 season. What I can tell you is this, last year I felt like there were times when I had the best form of my life and was unstoppable, and then there were those times where I just felt absolutely lousy. All of that is typical for any rider I guess. The thing for me to do is to now evaluate what I was doing during each of those bad times to determine whether I was feeling off due to my training load, work load here in the office, illnesses or whatever and then determine what I need to do to try and avoid having those severe lows when I'm aiming for those few races where I really want to do something special. I can also take a look at those times when I was really feeling on form, try to match that up to what my CTL was during that time period and try to shoot for that as an optimal goal for my peak events here during the 2007 season.

brian

We need your help!

2007-02-12T17:08:00.000-05:00

OK, so I'm not as desperate as what that heading sounds like, but I could use your advice. Jen and I will be celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary this year and we're trying to finalize where we want to go. I couldn't quite convince Jen to go white water rafting for 6 days up to the Arctic Ocean (Apparently roughing it for six days in the Arctic isn't quite so romantic) so the problem that we have now is that we can't pick the one place, so I'm hoping that you can help us out with that by giving us your thoughts. In the picture to the left (click on to enlarge), you will see what we consider to be our four final choices, of course I do reserve the right to add or subtract from this list as I find other sweet places that we'd like to go :) Our four finalists are: Northern California, Arizona (the Grand Canyon area to be exact), the Canadian Rocky Mountains and lastly New York City. Three out of the four vacations would be similar in that we would want to do some type of Eco vacation which would include some biking, hiking, paddling, etc. New York City is the obvious exception where we would be doing the typical tourist type of thing, sightseeing, Broadway shows, etc. So, please, I'm begging you, please feel free to send us your thoughts.

brian

2007 Season Preperations

2007-02-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

With the whole Elves & More thing happening in December, I found myself at the beginning of January almost two months behind schedule from last year. After I settled myself down a little bit and had a chance to really think about my situation, I realized that I was actually more like four months behind. I forgot the fact that once Will was born in mid August my average riding time went down to really only a few hundred miles per month at the very best. Now statistically I was even worse off than I had previously thought. That was before I started riding again and started looking at my power outputs on some of my tests (I can't say enough how great power meters are in the overall scheme of training). As it turns out, yes I indeed am a thousand or so miles behind where I was at last year but I am no longer thinking about my fitness in terms of miles but in terms of power output. My power output today is actually higher than at this exact time from last year. What do I chalk this up to? Well, probably a portion of that has to be contributed to the fact that last year I didn't fully know my limits or training levels, so I was most likely training at a slightly lower level than I was capable of. Outside of that, I also like to think that with several seasons of racing in my legs now, my body is able to come back around quicker to its previous levels. I've been riding consistently now for 6 weeks and am feeling stronger every day. Here's one of my favorite workouts that I try to do 2 to 3 times a week which makes for a great one hour ride on the rollers or fixed trainer:

10 minute warm up
20 minute effort @ approx. 90% of my seasonal FTP
5 minute recovery
5 minute effort @ approx. 100% of my seasonal FTP
5 minute recovery
5 minute effort @ approx. 100% of my seasonal FTP
10 minute cool down

I'm also working on doing an analysis of my 2006 season. In the next several weeks I hope to try to post some data images that Scott Thor has put together for me. Thanks for reading and I hope now that my mindset is back on riding, I'll be able to post a little more consistently.

brian

Elves & More Media Coverage

2007-01-02T09:42:00.000-05:00

Here are some links to the press coverage we received on the Elves & More delivery day:

Akron Beacon Journal

WKYC Channel 3

brian

Best of 2006

2006-12-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

Last year I created my best of 2005 series which was more reminiscing than anything, but it was fun so without further ado, here is my best of the 2006 season…..

Teammates: You learn about your teammates when you spend so much time with them. Forget about CSC’s survival training camp….StarkVelo has Boone! Nothing builds camaraderie like a little suffering on the Blue Ridge Parkway and a little dinner at the ole’ Golden Corral. By the way, never eat at the Golden Corral. Stark Velo is made up of some great individuals. Everyone is selfless and I have learned that I have made some very good friends by simply riding my bike. I am so looking to next year’s trip. Is it April yet?

Best Race. While working to protect team leaders Carl Peshoff and Mike Schiltz, I was able to snag my best result of the season during the first road race of the Summer Solstice stage race.

Worst Race Experience, Part I: My worst experience while in a team kit was at the same race I mentioned above. Here I was witness to a talented racer named Bret Neylon seriously injure himself in the Cat 3 finish. Seeing an accident like that tends to make you think about whether this is really worth it or not.

Worst Race Experience, Part II: The Summer Solstice Stage Race. Ok, so it seems sort of contradictory that I list this as my best and worst race. The races were fine, except for the Friday evening Crit, it was just the organization, or lack thereof that made it a horrible experience. I said this in a previous post but although I congratulate them on their enthusiasm, I have to criticize them on their ability to successfully pull this off. Next year, please do some more planning and get some more help to pull this off. A team of two or three people obviously doesn’t work.

Miles: I rode 5,274 miles this year. Not bad considering I essentially stopped riding in mid August with the birth of my second son, William.

Best Investment, Part I: I’d say working with Charles Howe to set up a structured training plan this year. With the purchase of a Power Tap last fall, I wanted help figuring this thing out. Working with a coach or consultant was sort of like getting the cliff notes to “The Grapes of Wrath.” Cliff Notes are a nice way to get an easy and quick understanding of a big concept. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still reading the novel, but for me the novel is a lot easier to digest when you have an understanding of the concepts described within.

Best Investment, Part II: Cervelo. Need I say more?

Goals: My big goal for next year is to upgrade to Cat III sometime during the later part of the season. This is fairly lofty considering my lack of intense riding these past few months. This will be the comeback of the century!

brian

Elves & More Delivery Day!

2006-12-27T14:39:00.001-05:00

I apologize for not keeping more up to date on the blog. I think I’ve apologized before in the past but in all honesty, it’s been so long since I’ve written anything I sort of forget where I left off at. As most of you are aware by now, I’m involved in a charity with two of my friends (Tim House & Jim Flesher) called Elves & More, Northeast Ohio. I won’t go too much in depth about who we are or what we do, instead let me refer you to our website for more information. The past few weeks have been chaotic to say the least. There are a lot of stories that Tim, Jim and I could share about everything it took to put this together, but the truly important thing is that on the day it mattered, everything went off without a hitch.

When Saturday morning came, I was like a kid at Christmas, filled with so much anticipation that sleeping was difficult. I’d had sleepless nights earlier in the month, but that was due to some stress of pulling this thing off….again, going back to some of those stories I mentioned earlier. In our first year we were able to gift over 400 kids! That’s amazing considering we only started fundraising in June and our expectation was to reach 100 kids. On Saturday morning, all of the hard work and planning had paid off. I’m not sure it really hit me that we were really doing this until I was sitting in the bus, driving down Cedar Avenue in the middle of a long police escort on the way to our first neighborhood. I had to take a second to compose myself before I could even finish the conversation that I was having. Seeing the big train weaving its way through Akron was a beautiful site, almost as touching as seeing the kids we were visiting smile, laugh and most importantly of all play! The other thing that touched me was seeing everyone run out to the edge of the street as we were leaving waving goodbye and thanks.

Rolling into each of the neighborhoods was a ton of fun. Here was this huge train of vehicles coming and they had no idea what we were up to. All of those kids woke up that morning having no idea how their life was about to change. As one of the organizers of the event, I spent a lot of time near the truck off-loading bikes and getting gifts into the volunteer hands (Just like Tim & Jim did). On one of the few runs that I did get to make, I saw one of the mothers of two kids crying in joy for what we were doing for them. Seeing that sight confirmed that what we were doing was right. Its so cliché but the joy of this time of the year is in the giving and not in the receiving. For so many years I’ve always said that but it probably wasn’t until this year that I really truly grasped this concept. I can honestly say that I could have received absolutely nothing for Christmas and that the experience I had of doing all of this was more than enough for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m way grateful for that iPod shuffle I got, but it wasn’t necessary at all. I am looking forward to driving by these neighborhoods in the near future and seeing the kids out playing on the bikes that I played a small part in getting for them.

So what’s next? Well, first off I need to get back on the bike. Once that happens, I can begin thinking about our 2007 campaign. We’ve said, and it’s been published now that our goal for next year is to provide 1000 bikes. Sitting here today, a year away, I can see that this is a very realistic goal. I hope that each and everyone of you reading this can be a part of next years experience.

brian

Will I ever make it back?

2006-11-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

For as long as its been that I've posted anything here even remotely related to cycling, its been at least that long since I felt like I truly have been out training. Sure, I've been on my bike once a week (maybe), but those were fun rides down into the valley and nothing too serious. As I've seen one of my teammates jokingly post recently, I'm currently in my de-training program and any true physical exercise would just throw my plan off. In fact, I think I'm now starting to train towards a new goal....making it to NBC's hit show "The Biggest Loser." OK, so I've not really been that bad but it is funny how quickly all that hard work in weight loss and fitness disappears. It takes months of effort to get your body in shape and it can all be gone in a few bad weeks.

So when do I get out of this rut? Well, I've been waiting for Will to start sleeping through the night so I can get up before work to ride but I'm not sure when that's going to happen any time soon so I need to commit. I'm committing to December 2nd for my serious program to begin. I've got some big ground to make up but putting the ice cream away and shaving the legs once again just might be that little bit of extra motivation that I need.

Until next time,
brian

Fall

2006-11-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

Lake High School Class of 1991, 15 year reunion

2006-10-21T23:08:00.000-04:00

Well, tonight was my 15 year high school reunion. This was the first time in 15 years that I would be seeing most of my classmates as my graduating class didn’t have a five year reunion and when the 10 year occurred; my wife and I were traveling through Europe. I did decide however that I had to go this year. There was no way I could wait another five years, after all I’m still relatively fit and I still have all of my hair. Who knows, in another five years I could be an absolute mess. The other added benefit for me was that it was being held only a few minutes away from my house and that it cost only $5. I kept saying that even if it was lame, I could leave early and at least I knew it sucked.

After getting all cleaned up and putting on a new pair of clothes, Jen and I ventured over to the Olde Harbor Inn in the Portage Lakes. I knew for a fact that two of my good friends with whom I still keep in contact with weren’t going to be there, but I was hoping that some of my friends who I had lost contact with would be. Walking into the space, I was relieved that I could recognize peoples faces but that was probably due to the fact that I had looked through my old yearbook a few nights prior to. In no time, I began finding old acquaintances to talk with. The problem is because they were just acquaintances in school, the chit-chat ended fairly quickly as the questions and answers became very routine from person to person. I told Jen going into this that this night would either be over very quickly, or it would be very late. You can guess for yourself since I’m home writing this in the same evening which of the two it turned out being. The problem I have is that I wanted much more out of this reunion then what I got. I don’t know if that’s my fault or if there’s really anyone to blame but standing there, looking and talking with everyone, it seemed as though everything was the same and no one really changed. The same people who hang out together in high school hung out there tonight and didn’t socialize much further than that small circle. Snobs were still snobs, jocks were still jocks and punks were still punks. I will admit that there were a couple of guys that I didn’t know well in school who I had some good conversations with and they appeared to be genuinely nice people. Makes me wish I had more opportunities in school to get to know them better.

One thing I learned tonight was that success can be measured in many different ways. The old cliché of trying to outdo others to show success is bull shit. So much of high school and even college was trying to outdo the competition (i.e. classmates) to make you feel better about yourself by getting good grades. For a part of my life that I thought defined who I was, it turned out that it didn’t at all. It’s not important whether I ended up being a professional athlete, a world famous rock musician or a trash man as long as I’m happy in what I’m doing. From this architect, a husband of almost 10 years and father of two happy and healthy boys, that’s all the success that I need in life, everything else is just icing on the cake.

The bottom line is that there is no bottom line. I left there feeling disappointed that the night didn’t turn out differently. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t that. Will I go to the 20 year reunion? Probably not. It’s not enough for me to be drawn back wondering who got fat, bald and divorced. Maybe I’ve grown up.

brian

Site Redesign

2006-10-18T17:50:00.000-04:00

Like all things in life, this site was ready for a redesign. I'm not sure I'm totally sold on it yet as its hard to go away from the classic black, but I'll keep tweaking it for the next few days until I find something I like.

brian

William's Baptism

2006-10-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted here, just way too much going on to take a few moments away from the family to do a little posting. Last weekend was Will's baptism. This picture shows him in his outfit. It's hard to believe that he's already 8 weeks old. Actually, what's hard to believe is that I haven't been on my bike more than once or twice a week for the past 8 weeks! Better get started soon or else next season will be painful.

brian

Elves and More, North East Ohio

2006-09-09T22:03:00.000-04:00

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve last updated the blog so I figured it was time I do something with this. As you can all imagine, things have been fairly hectic with the new baby in the house, so riding time has been fairly minimal, and hence no racing and no race reports. So, what else have I been busy doing besides changing diapers? Helping out with a local non-profit that two of my teammates, Jim Flesher and Tim House started; Elves and More, NEO. I remember reading in my Bicycling magazine a few years ago about this guy in Texas who was giving away 20,000 bikes a year to underprivileged kids in the Houston area and I thought what a cool idea and how nice it would be to be a part of something like that. Well, I’m happy to say that I’m now apart of something like that, only not nearly on that scale, yet. This year our hopes are that we can give away 100 bikes to kids in the Akron area. The concept is that we give every kid a Christmas gift in a selected area, so that every kid gets something and no one is left out. There are no prequalification that kids have to do, no forms to fill out, they just need to be a kid and they just need to be home when we come to their area. This is a crazy concept and something that is never done, so it will be interesting to see how it works out. The other idea behind this that makes it somewhat unusual is that we will simply arrive in an area, with no notice to the residents. This helps it be a complete surprise, and it will also guarantee that kids from outside the neighborhood don’t show up looking for bikes. I know this seems cruel but lets face it, whether we are giving away 10 bikes or 20,000, if everyone knew where and when you were giving away a free bike, then there would be no way you could ever have enough bikes for everyone. There’s always next year and the chance that we’ll visit their neighborhood.

So why am I telling this? Why of course because we are still in need of donations. I’d recommend if you haven’t done so all ready, please visit our website: http://www.elvesandmoreneo.org/
On the website, you will find more information on us and how you can help us reach our goals. Thanks.

brian

Another Picture

2006-08-20T20:53:00.000-04:00

This is William's namesake, my grandfather and his great-grandfather, Ned Bair Miner.

William Bair Miner Pictures

2006-08-18T07:10:00.000-04:00

2006-08-18T07:08:00.000-04:00

2006-08-18T07:06:00.000-04:00

2006-08-17T22:45:00.000-04:00

William Bair Miner

2006-08-17T21:55:00.000-04:00

This morning, at 8:18 a.m., our son William Bair Miner made his appearance onto this grand stage called life. Let me just say first here as I'm sure that there are questions on the middle name. Bair is a family name on my side. It is my grandfather's middle name along with my great-grandmothers maiden name. As I'm finally sitting down to write this thing at 10:00 at night, please note that I've only had about one hour of sleep since Tuesday, so I apologize in advance if I start not making sense at some point during this post. William is our second son so you can say that if my goal was to produce boys, I'm batting 1000 right now. That's a much better batting average than any MLB hitter. Of course, our hopes were only for a happy, healthy baby and that's what we've been blessed with.

The story of how he entered this world is fairly straightforward and for the sake of not being too graphic I'll give you the condensed version. Having a hunch that this baby would follow in the footsteps of his older brother, we weren't too surprised by having to go to the E.R. today at 1:00 in the morning, almost 3 weeks prior to his official due date. Of course I'm thinking why are all of my kids refusing to be born in the evening, allowing me a great nights sleep prior to the delivery? Actually what I should have been thinking was allowing Jen a decent nights sleep prior to delivery as she's the one doing all the work, I'm only a mediocre coach at best. After a bad experience in the first delivery with a bad epidural, Jen decided to try and go au' natural on this one. I was a little worried as I've seen those movies where women are screaming at their husbands, threatening their lives while pulling the hair out of their heads in the midst of delivery and I didn't want to be in that guy. Fortunately, Jen is awesome and even when she's feeling her absolute worst; she is still a remarkable woman to be around. I'm very lucky to have found her.

After some rough contractions and a few moments of pushing, William graced us with his presence. It turns out that being three weeks early isn't the only thing he has in common with Nicholas. They both weighed exactly the same, 7 lbs., 14 oz. and their length was similar as well with William coming in at 21 inches long. Both Jen and William are doing great, tired but great.

I'd like to say thank you to the nurses in the labor department at Akron City Hospital. Our nurses, Chris and Linda were absolutely amazing professionals. I don't know what the hospital is paying them, but it's not nearly enough. I only wish that everyone was as dedicated, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their job as these two ladies are. I can say without a doubt that with their help, it made the experience much easier on Jennifer and me.

brian

Orrville Milk Race

2006-08-14T17:23:00.000-04:00

It was nice to see some friendly faces at this morning’s Orrville Milk Race. The 8 friendly faces of my teammates who would line up with me in the Cat 4 field were; Mike Schiltz, Scott Brunner, Don Bunker, Jim Flesher, Tim House, Marshall Leininger, Erik Lesco, Carl Peshoff. I had originally sworn this race off last year when it was a combined cat 4/5 field but when I saw it was broken out into separate fields, I had to take another stab at it. Hats off to the Orrville cycling club for a well run event. Easy registration, plenty of marshals on all the road intersections, nice smooth roads and a police escort have all the makings for a good event.

Being officially on baby watch (I didn’t have my cell phone on me during the race, but I did give it to Jim’s wife Vicki) I was hoping I would make it through the race without getting ‘the call.’ This race was three laps long and the race can be described fairly generically lap by lap:

Lap 1: Fast with several attacks. Our own Jim Flesher led a move that looked good except that one of the three teams with significant numbers racing, Allied Decals wasn’t present. I didn’t think they could do it, but between their efforts and the riders off the front beginning to tire, the break was brought back right before the start/finish line. That was a bummer because I was looking to get off the front at the start line once they were back to try and grab one of the primes but with the high speed and pseudo mass confusion usually present by overtaking riders, I didn’t go for it. I was also suffering too much at this point to try and elevate the already high pace and I was just looking to conserve some energy to finish the remainder of the race. It was also at that point that I began thinking that maybe it would be nice if I did indeed get ‘the call.’ Not being waved down from Vicki, I decided to stick it out for at least one more lap.

Lap 2: Things seemed to slow down on this race as everyone was probably suffering as much as I was. I don’t remember any moves at all going on this lap until we got close to the second prime, which was won by Mike. No ‘call’ waiting for me so why not finish this thing out!

Lap 3: This lap picked up momentum once again as the official tour guide, Marshall pulled the field around the course. On the last time up the climb, a small group got off the front containing Don, Steve from Orrville and one rider I wasn’t familiar with. This turned out to be the move as Stark and Orrville became effective at shutting things down, as there were a lot of attempts at guys trying to get across the gap. It was nice to see all the teams racing strategically for a change. That’s not typically what you see in Cat 4 races which have been stereotyped as ‘sit and sprints.’ With the break safely up the road it would come down to the bunch sprint for scraps in the main field. I didn’t have great position in the field so I decided that since the payout was the same whether I placed 8th or 20th, I’d take it easy and not contest it. Better to finish with both wheels upright.

For all those wondering, I’m still waiting for ‘the call’ from my wife. I’ll keep you posted.

Here are the numbers for the day. Much tougher race than I thought while racing it. (Note, I was suffering but I thought it was just because I haven’t been able to log in quality miles.)

Duration: 1:15:36
Work: 988 kJ
TSS: 112.2 (intensity factor 0.944)
Norm Power: 283
Distance: 30.094 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 979 218 watts
Heart Rate: 50 185 164 bpm
Cadence: 29 141 96 rpm
Speed: 2.7 40.9 23.9 mph
Torque: 0 342 65 lb-in

2026 Tour preparations start

2006-08-03T12:32:00.000-04:00

I never thought riding along at 6 mph would seem fast and dangerous. That was before I began following Nicholas around the neighborhood. We purchased him his first two-wheeler a few weeks ago and much to my delight, it's been almost nonstop riding for him ever since. I'm sad to say however that at first glance, it appears as though he's taking after me in his riding strengths and weaknesses. I determined this when he was looking for a friendly push up the small 'hills' in our neighborhood. Our favorite loop right now is riding down to Chestnut Blvd. and back which offers just over 2 1/2 miles worth of riding. I was extremely impressed the first time we did it and he wanted to keep going. I quickly talked him into going in the house for a bowl of ice cream however as that first ride took us about one hour to complete. Fortunately as he is getting more and more comfortable on the bike, the ride time has been getting reduced while we've begun to increase our distances.
As a guy who typically rides on roads the majority of the time and is always searching to find the 'smoothest' line, it was a nice reminder on how much fun it is to actually go out of your way to go through puddles, ride over manhole covers or to find every rise in concrete.

brian