Travel and training

The next couple of months involve a lot of travel for me, most of it short trips of the "fly one day, sleep, meeting, then fly home" variety. This is killing my ability to train. In most cases I work a partial day and then head straight to the airport, getting to my destination in the late evening (8pm or later). Since I am an evening-trainer, this means no workout those days. The following day is meeting, followed by a late flight home, arriving in the same time window (8pm or later), which means a second day without training. Again, in most cases I'm pretty thrashed and playing catch-up the third day, which means a late night at work and again no training. Additionally, it means two or three days where I don't eat the way I should. All in all, it's bad news.

Any ideas on ways to still get some training in with all this travel?

Running in the rain

Tonight was my running night and so, despite a pretty heavy rainfall, I put on my gear and headed out. The run wasn't so great in terms of time or distance, but it was just what I needed. I'm trying to build my rhythm for working out so that I get into the pattern of run one, bike one, lift one, repeat, and like I said, tonight was the run one.

It wasn't a great run, but it was fun. If it had been just a tad warmer (it's about 50F here right now) I would have headed out without the hoodie, just shorts and t-shirt. There's something about heading out into the rain fully intending to get soaked that just makes it fun. The walk home form BART in my work clothes? not so great. Running in the rain, really great.

I think it comes back to the whole "accepting reality as it is" thing which is so key to Zen (and which Texafornia from ZenTri spoke about in a recent podcast from ZenTri camp). My "knowledge" of Zen being pretty basic (by that I mean I haven't studied a lot of writings by masters, I've read accounts of the way they lived and developed my understanding from there) I won't try to pass on some teaching from this. For me it was more a perfect opportunity to experience the difference mind (in a Zen sense) can make. There was no difference in the world between my walk home (~15 min) and my run (~20 min, maybe 10 minutes after I got home) but the way I reacted to it was entirely different, and all because I headed out for the run fully intending to get wet.

The world is what it is, but they way we react to it is entirely up to us. I've now experienced that in a very profound way.

I am stronger than pizza (tonight)

Tonight was my first bike commute in a long-ish time, probably a couple of months. It felt much longer than it was given that it took me the same time it always has (around an hour). There's one stretch where I always feel whooped and wish I had SAG support and for some reason when I hit that spot tonight (it was already full dark) I wanted pizza so bad I could almost taste it. Then, just a few blocks from home I passed a Little Caesar's and I still wanted pizza, even if it was pizza pizza.

But no, I'll be good and heat up my stew.

Running > aggravation

Without going into details, by the time I was heading out of work today I was miffed. or peeved. or salty. Take your pick. Personally, I'm going with so aggravated my eyes were bleeding. There are a number of reasons why I felt that way, and none of them matter now.

I was also very keyed up, almost jittery. So I decided to go for a run, something I haven't done for the better part of a month. On that run I ran (ha ha) into my friend Slav and his wife who live somewhat close to me. They were loading their kids into the car to go get dinner and we chatted for a couple of minutes, something else I haven't done for far too long.

A few minutes later I realized that I felt great, at least emotionally. My body was making it very clear that being overweight and taking a month off of running were a bad combo, but the borderline rage I'd been feeling for the last few hours was just gone.

Getting out to run, being able to let my brain switch as close to off as I can (I won't even get into how long it's been since I meditated), and pounding pavement let me subconsciously resolve the battles I'd been fighting in my head. Since there is nothing I can do about any of the things that had me so irked, I let them go. All without actually thinking about it, by just getting into the rhythm of the run.

Like I said in the title - running is greater than aggravation.

Rededication

Last night I did something I've been meaning to do for a while now - I shaved my head again. I seem to have an anti-Samson complex or something, the more I let my hair grow the less focused I get. I need my focus back because I've signed on for another round of the LiveStrong Challenge and want to have a better showing than last year.

As before, I'm riding for Team Fatty, I plan on doing the metric century, and I'm asking for donations.

Unlike before I want to train with focus, hence the head shaving.

In truth, I haven't done any real training since the Turkey Tri at Thanksgiving which some of you may remember whooped me, and not just because of the REALLY cold swim. I have a plan this time around (unlike last year) which involves some mild running and roller/trainer riding for a couple of weeks and then getting more serious. I've picked up a book (Friel's triathlete training bible) and will be keeping a paper log to complement my electronic on on ActiveBody. I will also be posting here regularly as I train, and because I want to shame myself into sticking to it I'll be posting those reports to Facebook.

The ride is in July, which gives me a good six months to get into serious shape, and this time around I want to do just that.

Two good pieces of kit

Despite the unpleasant weather (40s, drizzle) yesterday I set myself up to bike home. I had my new bags from Swift and loaded them onto the bike to test out.

The first thing I noticed when I got the box a couple of weeks ago was that the bags were beautiful. Swift lets you customize the bags and I couldn't be happier with how they cam out. The attachment is simple - I tossed in a little extra to have a bungie attachment with an S-hook for the bottom so all I did was hook the bungie on the bottom and pull up until I could hook the top bar on the rack. The two bags worked great for what I wanted to carry - my work clothes, computer, and some notebooks. With a second set of bags (which I have) I can easily load enough gear for a short trip (couple of days) without trouble. When the weather turns enough for me to test the bags out with a full tour, I'll let you know.

The other piece of kit I wanted to crow about is my Fat Cyclist woolie (sorry, it's a limited edition and there hasn't been any info on the next version). Like all FC gear it's made by Twin Six, and it's fantastic. Yesterday was the first time I really tested it in poor weather, I'd worn it on cool days before but not in the cold. I was wearing the jersey with a day-glo vest over it and shorts, and within a few minutes I was plenty warm. I will soon be ordering a few more wool jerseys for winter riding.

Clothes make the ride?

I managed to get off my @$$ and ride into work this morning (well, ride to BART and plan to ride home). Most of the time when I've ridden in I've kitted up since that's what I wear to ride home (12 miles - bike shorts are nice). Today I just put on my work clothes since the morning ride is so short. I noticed something odd though - there's one major intersection between my house and BART, and I normally crosswalk it. Today though I just pulled over and turned with the traffic in the left hand turn lane.

I'm perfectly comfortable taking the lane, and traffic isn't so brutal that the crosswalk is safer, so I don't know why I took the lane today instead. My only thought is that most of the time when I kit up I'm doing back road or bike trail riding, and most of the time when I'm in street clothes I'm running errands and commuting. Either way, I was more vehicular in the my riding in my street clothes.

Anyone else find their riding style changed based on what they wear?

Quick note - great causes

The master of soliciting donations, Elden Nelson (The Fat Cyclist) is at it again. First he sent an open letter to Johan Bruyneel explaining why he deserved to be on Team Radio Shack. Johan upped the game with this challenge:

By Friday December 11, 12:00 PM US Mountain Standard/Tucson, AZ Time you must have met the following criteria

• Raised a minimum of $10,000 for World Bicycle Relief

AND

• Raised a minimum of $10,000 for LIVESTRONG

If those two criteria are met by the stated deadline, I will fly you out to Arizona and you will have the one opportunity to ride with Team RadioShack on Sunday, December 13.

But I have a bonus for you!If you raise a minimum of $25,000 for World Bicycle Relief AND $25,000 for LIVESTRONG, you"ll get a brand new Trek Madone 6 Series bike powered by SRAM Red.

So, Fatty threw it open to everyone. Go to his blog, read the full post, and toss in for a chance to win.

Turkey Tri (San Dimas, CA) race report - for real

OK, now that I can feel all of the delicate parts of my body that were near-frozen after the swim on Sunday I'll write the race up.

As I mentioned in my earlier post it was 58F in the water and I didn't have a wetsuit. I had a pair of tri shorts (bike shorts with a thinner pad), the yellow Clyde class swim cap, and a pair of Sweedish goggles. That's it. I had to do the first 1/3 of the swim backstroke because when I put my chest in the water I couldn't hold my breath. I eventually hit a point where I could take a few strokes without dying but the water sucked most of my strength. Walking up the beach (and then up some stairs to T1) was tough.

The bike was better. The day was warming and it was comfortable to ride. I've done one other race in the same park and the route was shifted to be easier to start (last time you had a good climb right out of T1 so you had to have your bike in a low gear to make the run/walk from T1 - jump and ride move possible). I rode my Super Course and it was adjusted slightly off, with the seat a little too low, but that's my fault for not re-fitting the bike I haven't been on for better than a year. Oh, and I left my helmet in my truck (I carpooled to the race with my brother) and had to borrow one (Brian, bib # 77, you are my hero).

The run was a little long for a sprint (4.5 mi) but it was through the park and pretty nice. My only gripe is that the kid's duathlon they were running was using the adult run route for the kid's bike route and I got tagged in the arm by a sprinting kid.

As you can see from the pic above, I was last (20/20) in my class and darn near DFL (dead f---ing last) overall, but I did finish. I haven't been as good as I'd hoped with my training this fall and now I have a base time to try and better.

Turkey Tri (San Dimas, CA) race report

I did the Turkey Tri in San Dimas the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The water was 58F and I didn't have a wetsuit. When I thaw out I'll have a full write-up.