better late than never

i got home last nite around 5:00 as usual, and i was looking forward to making some dinner and running with darrin at 7:30. as i walked in the house, kim came downstairs and began putting her shoes on. hmmm.

"hey, where are you going?"
"i have class tonite -- duuuh!"
"oh....yeah....right..."

i totally forgot that 1) kim has class on mondays and wednesdays, and 2) that it actually was wednesday. so neeless to say, the 7:30 run was out. i called darrin and we agreed to run at 9:30, after kim got home. we were both disappointed in that we wanted to run while the sun was still out and it was still broiling hot.
so we did 3 miles in the dark, but geez, was it humid!
i took a shower and caught an episode of Chasing Lance on FitTV. pretty cool show, actually. it's kinda neat to see some of the behind the scenes stuff that goes on during a race.
well, 3 more miles on tap for tonite. 'till, then......

alrighty, now...

enough's enough. sorry it's been so long since i've updated. i've kept tabs on everyone, though! i've just been so busy lately. the kids' summer activities are in full swing, and i'm very involved with andrew and nathan's soccer team, and justin's all-star baseball team. between practices, games and traveling, i haven't had alot of time to update this.
anyway, i'm not going to be able to do alot of races this summer. the main reason is that i'm just not in good enough condition yet. i've narrowed it down to a scant two - the Mideast Regional Triathlon Championship, which is an olympic distance event in indianapolis on august 28, and the wabash valley half marathon, here in terre haute, on september 10.
these races are far enough out that i'll be able to do some serious training to prepare. i'll be doing both races with darrin. we've also started a "formal" training program for the half marathon. sunday was our first "real" day on the program and we did an incredibly hot and steamy 5 miles at 3:00 in the afternoon. in the past, heat and humidity never bothered me too much, but sunday's run was truly brutal. we actually walked for a couple of minutes at the turnaround. after i returned home and showered, we left to go to justin's baseball game. the bank a couple of miles from my house read 98 degrees. poor justin pitched 4 innings in the heat. he did great, though and never complained.
darrin and i took monday off and did another 3 miles last nite. it was so humid. i worked up a great sweat. i bet i lost 5lbs on sweat alone. it felt good.

i've been a real lazy ass this year and i don't know exactly why. for the most part, everything is going very well. unlike last year when i was searching for a job and wondering if i was going to have to sell my house, this year there is much less stress. yet for some reason, i can't seem to get motivated. yes, my life is totally crazy, but really, how difficult is it to go run for 30 minutes a day? time has become just an excuse i create for myself to justify my laziness. and i'm done with excuses. i'm gonna stick to this plan i have, do my two little races in a couple of months, and get in some semblance of physical condition, so that i can focus on specific training for IMMOO next year. i'm sure that wil and verticalman will beat my ass on that course in 14 months, but it'll be an honor to toe the line with them and thank them as they wait around for me to finish! kudos also to these two (and anyone else), who finished a triathlon this past weekend in the unrelenting heat.
OK. enough said. now i must do. let's check the schedule..... 3 miles tonite. i just got off the phone with darrin. we're running at 7:30. andrew and nathan are going with us. check back tomorrow. i'll be here.

it's heatin' up

well summer certainly decided to show itself here lately. it's been blazing hot with very high humidity here for the past week or so. and i love it! (well, i usually love it - more about that in a minute...) yes, i'm weird in the sense that i love working out in hot weather. give me 90 degrees over 30 degrees anytime. i get kind of a strange sense of accomplishment when i get back from a run when it's hot and humid and i'm completely soaked in sweat. then i'll take a cooldown lap around my neighborhood, go inside to the cool air conditioning, take a shower, and feel wonderful.
when we came back from the soccer tournament in evansville the other weekend (we lost in the semifinals - crap!), i was looking forward to that exact sequence of events. not quite...
soccermom was the first to walk into the house upon our return. then, as i was unloading the minivan, i heard what every husband dreads. in a puzzled voice, she said:

"honey, come here for a second and take a look at this"

i stepped into the house and immediately noticed how hot it was. i figured she probably turned the air conditioning off before we left. nope. the air was turned on, alright, but the breaker was tripped and wouldn't reset. the bottom line was that it was 91 degrees in the house and i know exactly nothing about geothermal heat pumps and air conditioning systems. after opening all the windows and cranking up all the ceiling fans, we managed to get the temperature down to a chilly 86. grr.
well, i figured since i was sweating just sitting there, i might as well go running and sweat for a reason. so i did. 5 very humid miles. i got back with that very familiar and enjoyable waterfall of sweat running down me, took a lap around the block, and went inside to cool off in the air condit..... uuuhhhh, wait - there's no air conditioning. ok, skip that step and go right to the shower.
i took the coldest shower i'd had since i dated that catholic girl in 12th grade, and like then, it did no good. i got out and trying to dry off was useless. i was sweating too much. we lived all last week like this. as it turned out, the compressor died. the a/c guy called friday and said the part came in. he replaced it saturday, took my $900, and the house is back to 74 degrees.
saturday nite it was still very hot and muggy. i did a hard 6-miler and purposely heated myself way up, did my lap, and hit the air conditioning. ahhh. bliss. so sweet. much much better...

hey, i wanted to give a congratulations to all of you who completed milestone events over the past couple of weekends. in particular, wil, who nailed her first marathon, and nancy, who completed her first half ironman on the challenging eagleman course. congrats, guys! you rock!

hill work

from what i understand, there might be a hill or two on the IMMOO course;) now i know that the race is still 15 months away, but the weather's been beautiful and i was feeling motivated, so i thought i'd try a little hill training.
as i've mentioned, there's not an overabundance of hills here, but there is one Pretty Damn Steep (PDS) hill about 6 miles away. so, sunday afternoon, after doing a 15 mile ride with andrew and nathan, i set off to Old Paris Road, past Pumpkin Works, and came across my training partner. it's about 3/4 mile long, has a fairly sharp curve, and, like i said, is PDS. i don't know how to measure % grade or anything like that, but it'll suffice for my needs. the first time i trekked up it, i hit it pretty hard. i was out of the saddle for a while and was fairly winded by the time i hit the top. i turned around, coasted down, and went up again. surprisingly, i didn't feel that much worse the second time. the third ascent was more difficult. in all, i went up that thing five times. by the time i reached the summit the fifth time, i was toast.
i spun easily for a couple of miles before turning to go home. on the return home, i was looking forward to cranking down that hill for the last time. it was on this hill two years ago that i reached my fastest speed ever on the bike - 52mph. i usually hit 35 - 40mph if i just coast down it, but i thought maybe i'd like to break that record.
the beginning of the descent is not too steep and is a good place to gain some speed. and i did just that. unfortunately, there was a car coming up behind me. hmmm.. decision time. do i let it pass me, but in the process slow down and ruin all the fun of the descent, or do i hammer it and stay ahead of the car? because this hill has a curve on the steepest section, i can actually go faster on it than a car can. i started to hammer it, but the car came up too fast. he was just past me as we started the steep curvy section. i hit it, and closed the gap on the car to about 10 yards when i decided to slow down because i didn't want to get any closer. i managed to hit 48mph. i could see the driver's face in his rearview mirror. man did he look surprised to see a guy on a bike come up behind him because he was going too slow down a hill! heh.

buying a decent road bike: $1000
shoes, pedals, and accessories: $250
the facial expression of a Common Man glancing in his rearview mirror as i get ready to pass his car while riding a bike at nearly 50mph: priceless

folks, it's moments like this that make all the work worth it.