MOO!

whew. what a week it's been so far. work has been hectic, the kids' activities have been nonstop, and this freakin' java programming class i'm taking is consuming waaaay too much running time. i was up until almost 2AM this morning finishing up a program. geesh. oh, and hey, there is some good news:

1) it was my birthday this past tuesday. i'm now 37. i'm hoping that in races from now on, the organizers will accidently transpose the digits of my age. i figure that's the only way i'll ever have a shot at an age group award. but even then, i'm not so sure. there are some truly amazing 70 year old triathletes.

2) i've been out running 3 times lately, if you include sunday. i know, big deal, right? but, hey, that's good for me. i did a 6-miler on sunday. nothing spectacular, then a couple of 4-milers this week. the weather at 11PM when i've been running has been wonderful. a little cool, but perfect for working your body a little. i almost had a disaster, though. while running monday nite, i stepped right into a pothole that i didn't see, since i was running in total darkness. now, my ankles are horribly weak, primarily because of the zillions of sprains i incurred during my competitive soccer playing years. i mean, it takes very little for me to twist and roll my ankle, causing a painful sprain. well, i hit this pothole full-force and went straight down. i immediately assumed that i sprained the crap out of it and was envisioning a week or two of total downtime. fortunately, after getting up, it felt pretty good. i finished the last 1/2 mile to my house and was worried that it would swell like crazy overnight. but no! it was fine tuesday morning. i did another 4 miles tuesday nite, and it was rockin'. cool! i got lucky. normally, any minor twist to an ankle causes serious damage, but i escaped it this time. hah!

then the really good news:

the official formation of TGD Team MOO! yes, current members wil, steve, and i are taking on the insane task of the daunting IM wisconsin course. i know a couple of people who have completed it, and i've been told it's quite a challenge. but that's good. lord knows i need the motivation! just take a look at the crazy elevation charts that wil posted. heh. bring it on. i'm not really sure how i'm going to train for those hills here in the flatlands of indiana... but that's ok. i'll work it out.
i think it'll be alot of fun to track the progress of the florida team and the MOO team over the next 18 months.

now, if you'll excuse me, i need to go locate some hills...

someone moved my cheese

i had already begun salivating. the anticipation was beginning to build. then in a matter of an hour, it was all torn down.
most of you know about my insanely busy life. very rarely do i have an evening free, and even more rarely a weekend free. i thought this coming weekend was going to be one of those rare ones. the kids had no baseball games scheduled, and even more strangely, no soccer games. i was envisioning waking up saturday morning around 8, hopping on the bike and putting in 50-75 miles, and getting home before noon. then sunday putting in a 10-15 mile run. yes, i was actually eagerly anticipating this.
then i was handed the paper after our soccer practice last nite. it said that we had to reschedule a future game that conflicted with a tournament we are going to in june. it will now be played sunday. in indianapolis. ok, scrap the sunday morning run. from soccer practice, andrew, nathan and i cruised over to the baseball fields where justin (my 8-year old) was starting his game. soon after i learned that we were going to make up a game that had been rained out last week. on saturday. at 10AM!! GRRR! scrap the long ride.
i know... some of you are wondering why i don't just get up earlier and get my run/ride in before the kids' activities. well it's still pretty cold here early in the morning, so i really don't want to start the ride too soon and freeze my soon-to-be sore ass off. and the run? yeah, it'll only take a couple of hours, so i'll probably still do that. but i was just looking forward to rolling out of bed at a nice, late hour and not having to rush to be anywhere. so i'll probably still do the long run saturday, but i'll have to start around 7:00 so that i can be done by 9. convincing darrin to get up that early to run with me will be a challenge also. he's probably less of a morning person than i am. and that's sayin' something.
in current news, i did a little 4 mile run solo last nite. nothing special. my right foot had been hurting for the last couple of days, but now it's fine. maybe it was trying to tell me it needed to run. way to go, Body! perhaps now when i get a headache, i should start studying more for the programming class i'm taking. and when my back hurts, i should do more yardwork. does this mean that when my stomach hurts, i should eat another piece of cheesecake? hmm. i just might have to test that theory...

lovin' every minute of it

yesterday was so cool. you see, my older sons took a field trip with their school to st. louis. my wife chaperoned so instead of trying to figure out who we could get to see my other kids off to school, off the bus, etc., i just took a vacation day. after i dropped my daughter off at kindergarten and quickly ran a few errands, it was time. it was time to do something i haven't really done in almost 18 months. it was time to take a "real" bike ride. not a ride around the neighborhood, not a ride to a friend's house, and not a slow 10-miler with my kids. a real ride. the weather was beautiful - around 80 and not a cloud in the sky. i put on my vioxx cycling jersey (darrin is a merck pharmaceutical rep and he got me the jersey last year. i wonder if it's worth something now...) and padded shorts, grabbed a couple of gels, stocked up with one water and one gatorade, and off i went. my 30-mile loop has several rolling hills and one fairly significant hill at the 6.5 mile mark. a quick summary of my ride, stage 1:

- geez, that was a hell of a skunk
- my ass hurts a little
- why does it hurt to stay aero?
- #!@*, i don't remember this hill being this %$#!ing long!
- can somebody please find my lungs?!
- ok, i've gotta stand up for a second to get this seat out of my ass
- c'mon, i know i can do better than 17mph!
- the feel of sweating inside of my helmet is.... pleasing, actually!
- no, that's ok, dodge caravan, i didn't need any of road

stage 2: at the turn around point of my ride, there is a walmart and a little convenience store where i bought another gatorade

- ha! dodge caravan! goin' to walmart eh? ooh, the temptation to get revenge is almost overwhelming...
- the sun is feeling really warm on my neck and back
- i can't find a position where my ass does not hurt
- oh yeah, here it comes. now i get to go down the big hill!
- yee-ha! (i hit 44mph)
- did i mention that my ass really hurts?
- and here's the finish line!

all told, i covered 30.1 miles in 1:43, for an average speed of 17.6mph. certainly not lance-like, but acceptable under the circumstances. despite my back and butt hurting and getting sunburned on my neck, i loved every second of it. i had almost forgotten how enjoyable it is to ride and feel the wind and sun on me. i've been dying to get back on the bike. and i think my bike was smiling too.

announcements

first off today i'd like to offer up congrats to my training partner darrin, who completed the indianapolis mini marathon this past weekend. he cruised through the 13.1 miles (which features a lap around the indy 500 track) in a great time of 2:00:12, which computes to a 9:11/mile pace. he placed 6482 out of 25029. good job big "d". he said the he contemplated a crazy sprint to the finish to try to come in under 2 hours, but quickly struck down the idea because he realized that if he did that, he might have received his finisher's medal posthumously. probably a good idea...
i've pretty much decided to do the wabash valley half marathon in september. it's a local race on a course with "rolling hills". even though they run this every year, i've never done it. the website really doesn't give much info about the course other than to say "rolling hills", but obviously i know the area and there aren't any real hills near there, so it can't be too difficult. i'll probably do a couple of sprint tri's this year just for fun also.
and, OK, well, i guess i'll say this now...... it looks like i'll probably do IMMOO in 2006 and not IMFL. as much as i would absolutely LOVE to meet everyone in florida, it just doesn't make any sense for me to do that race. first off, i've already done IMFL, so i'd like to try a different course. and second, and more importantly, my family could watch me race IMMOO, and they wouldn't be able to go to florida. see, madison is only a few hours from where i live as opposed to 13 hours to panama city. assuming darrin does the race with me, we'd drive up tuesday or wednesday and our families could drive up saturday. the race is on sunday, and the sweet thing is that monday is a holiday, so we could all drive home then. this way none of my kids have to miss school, and they get to take a cool trip that's not too far. the thing i always wanted to do was cross the finish line with my kids. i've seen so many pictures of others with their kids on their shoulders running across that line. what an awesome feeling. i missed that when i did IMFL.
so, sorry you guys! *sob* this is soooo difficult *sob sob*. obviously nothing's in concrete yet, but it really looks like i'll be kickin' it off in the murky waters of lake monona and not in the refreshing gulf of mexico in '06. anyone have a kleenex?
or maybe some hills for me to train on...

the madness never ends

well as usual we had super busy weekend. the kids and i spent the whole weekend in indianapolis for the first round of the state soccer championships. soccermom was unable to go because of her affliction - called "term paper procrastination" (it was due monday!). we left saturday morning and didn't get home until sunday afternoon. we played poorly in the second half of our first game and went from a 3-1 halftime lead to a 5-3 loss. not good. this, however, is when things got interesting. we went back to the fields later that day to watch a game involving the team we were playing sunday morning. with about five minutes left in the game, we got hit by a hailstorm! wow! it must have dropped at least 20 degrees and added 30 mph winds in the matter of two minutes. we had ice caked on us. it was so utterly ridiculous that we just had to laugh. the kids thought it was great. then we went back to our hotel, got changed, and went out to eat. by the time we got back to the hotel, it was close to 10pm. that's when justin told me his ear hurt. now, if any of my other kids had told me that, i would have just told them to go to sleep and they'd feel better in the morning. but not justin. he never complains. so when he does say something like that, i know it must be hurting him pretty badly (as it turned out, he has an ear infection). of course, i didn't have any tylenol or motrin, so off we went to hunt down some medicine. i found a little minimart not too far from the hotel, and ran in. i left the kids in the van (i could see them from inside the minimart), and turned the interior lights on (this is important later). we got back to the hotel, i gave justin his medicine, and we went to bed. we woke up early the next morning, went down and ate breakfast, and walked outside to get in the van. i pushed the unlock button on the remote. nothing. hmmm. i pushed it again. nothing. huh. i unlocked the door with the key and pushed the button to open the side doors. nothing. this isn't good. apparently, i forgot to turn off the interior lights when we got back the night before. fortunately, we were able to jump it and it seems OK. things got better from there. the boys went out and kicked the snot out of their well respected evansville-based opponents, scoring a lopsided 6-1 victory. as a result of this and other games, we ended up winning our group and qualifying for semifinals, which take place in june. nathan played great in defense, and andrew, although he didn't score, did assist on five of our nine goals. great job, boys!
as for me, obviously i didn't get to do any training saturday, but i did get in 5 miles sunday nite. and i was in weird mood too. normally, i just take it easy and don't push too hard. but for some reason - maybe i was inspired by the boys soccer success this weekend, or even by TGK, robostu, and headdoc - i really ran hard. i finished the flat five in 41:58. and yes, i sprinted like a madman the last 30 yards or so to come in under 42:00! i walked a couple of laps around my neighborhood to cool down and felt good about my effort. yee ha.
there's been alot of talk amongst the "tri-alliance" group about IMFL in '06. i've gotta admit, i've been thinking alot about it also. i haven't proposed it to my wife yet, but i'm pretty sure i'll either do IMFL or IMMOO (wisconsin, for those who don't get the "MOO" part...). IMFL would be great because i'd love to go meet everyone. that would be so cool. but IMMOO just works out better logistically. it's alot closer, the family could come, not to mention i've already done IMFL, etc... but i've got time. we'll see.
finally, i have this to pass along. WARNING! if you get offended easily, do not click it. it is not g-rated. barely r-rated, maybe. but hilarious, nonetheless. click at your own risk!