one of the main questions that lead me to study what i do (and keeps me doing what i'm doing) is 'why do some people get injured while others do not?' while this is definitely a feature piece, there is an interesting article in the ny times today (read it here) which talks about how little we know about injury. the author gives an example of three different athletes who all do fairly high volume training (or at least two do) but whose injury records are very different. what makes some people fragile while others are able to just pound out the miles in worn out shoes? and is the difference only physical? or is some of it mental as well? and can fragility/durability change over time?
on a completely unrelated note, i've been dreaming lately, which is weird. i can't remember the last semester i had where i actually had dreams during the term. i always dream after the term is over and i start sleeping more. right now, however, its the middle of the semester too because in them friends from all different parts/times in my life are saying the things i have been thinking lately though they may not (in reality) actually know the person, do the activity, have the opinion, etc, they're talking about (though i do). so i think all the running i'm doing such that when i sleep, i sleep really well.
it is almost halloween. yeah!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
a monster!
it is pretty dark in the morning here. i was finishing my 10 mile run this morning (all of which was done in the dark) when i heard a gurgling sound to my right. i think my blood pressure spiked for a few moments before i realized it was someone's sprinkler system. phew!
on a very random note, congrats to chris and julia on buying their first house. my little brother is all grown up! my friend michael told me not too long ago that i was falling behind...everyone else seemed to be buying houses, getting engaged, having kids, etc, etc. so michael, i think this means that NOW i am officially behind (i wasn't yesterday), but i am okay with that. their house looks awesome...they can see the rockies from their bedroom window.
and in other unrelated news, everyone seems to be coming to austin in february. a friend from the ride will be running the marathon (i've promised to pace), and michael and his gf will be coming to do the half-marathon. that will be one exciting weekend!
i am happy to report that i survived my midterms. i got back the grade for the one i thought i failed, and it turned out i didn't do nearly that bad. in discussing the exam yesterday the professor told us that his class and one other that we took last spring were supposed to be the equivalent of our qualifying exams...so they should be difficult. i hadn't realized that, but somehow this small bit of knowledge (about what our classes were supposed to be) helped me put things into perspective. despite the fact that the class is hard, i admit that i'm learning and being challenged. i like that.
its funny how your expectations about things (classes, people, trips, whatever) can make you see those things in a different light. my class, as i mentioned, makes more sense knowing that its supposed to replace my qualifying exam. i had a lot of expectations going into this past summer, and then the summer turned out to be not at all what i expected. i was also expecting the return to research to be a breeze, but many days, i just want to go outside and actually feel the breeze.
i'm currently realizing too that my classes are permeating my ability to live and think about things other than school. either that or its just making my curiosity level about everything around me in a scientific sense, increase. i lead a discussion this morning in my lab meeting on a paper modeling the probability of tripping. as i was reading the paper in preparation i was thinking about how it related to everything i was studying in biostats and the concept that if you increase the frequency of something minor, something major is also more likely to occur. for example, if you walk more often, you're more likely to trip. if you trip more frequently, there's a higher probability that you'll fall...simply because you trip more often. my headlamp is mia at the moment, so as i was running in the dark this morning, thinking about how i couldn't see, it was a logical next step (no pun intended) to start thinking about the probability of me tripping on an unseen object...i could model this.
on a very random note, congrats to chris and julia on buying their first house. my little brother is all grown up! my friend michael told me not too long ago that i was falling behind...everyone else seemed to be buying houses, getting engaged, having kids, etc, etc. so michael, i think this means that NOW i am officially behind (i wasn't yesterday), but i am okay with that. their house looks awesome...they can see the rockies from their bedroom window.
and in other unrelated news, everyone seems to be coming to austin in february. a friend from the ride will be running the marathon (i've promised to pace), and michael and his gf will be coming to do the half-marathon. that will be one exciting weekend!
i am happy to report that i survived my midterms. i got back the grade for the one i thought i failed, and it turned out i didn't do nearly that bad. in discussing the exam yesterday the professor told us that his class and one other that we took last spring were supposed to be the equivalent of our qualifying exams...so they should be difficult. i hadn't realized that, but somehow this small bit of knowledge (about what our classes were supposed to be) helped me put things into perspective. despite the fact that the class is hard, i admit that i'm learning and being challenged. i like that.
its funny how your expectations about things (classes, people, trips, whatever) can make you see those things in a different light. my class, as i mentioned, makes more sense knowing that its supposed to replace my qualifying exam. i had a lot of expectations going into this past summer, and then the summer turned out to be not at all what i expected. i was also expecting the return to research to be a breeze, but many days, i just want to go outside and actually feel the breeze.
i'm currently realizing too that my classes are permeating my ability to live and think about things other than school. either that or its just making my curiosity level about everything around me in a scientific sense, increase. i lead a discussion this morning in my lab meeting on a paper modeling the probability of tripping. as i was reading the paper in preparation i was thinking about how it related to everything i was studying in biostats and the concept that if you increase the frequency of something minor, something major is also more likely to occur. for example, if you walk more often, you're more likely to trip. if you trip more frequently, there's a higher probability that you'll fall...simply because you trip more often. my headlamp is mia at the moment, so as i was running in the dark this morning, thinking about how i couldn't see, it was a logical next step (no pun intended) to start thinking about the probability of me tripping on an unseen object...i could model this.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
saturday...work?
i had this great idea to finish my take-home exam by this evening. it could still happen. instead of getting straight to work though i had adventures, and that was significantly more interesting.
i rolled out of bed around 7:30 this morning and was on the road for a nice 20-miler before 8a. i was running loops around town lake so i could watch the regatta. i have no idea how many teams there were, but people were racing the entire time i was out there. i think i even saw brian racing up and down the shore coaching (or maybe just watching today?).
as i mentioned in an earlier post, the goal of this week was to jump my run mileage up. in the past when i have done this, i've generally been moving pretty slowly on my long run at the end of the week. today i finished, stretched, then looked at the clock and sat there wondering if the batteries were dying. despite the fact that i felt like crap for most of the summer, i am a lot stronger because of it. and its not just on the bike. i think its time to make the run mileage go even higher and see what happens. i need to find another ultra to enter too.
anyways, after my run and a quick lunch, my roommates and i went shopping. i am happy to report i actually found things i like and have something to wear at the GHaus party in a couple weeks! i have also discovered halter tops look good with short hair. as an aside, the hairdresser yesterday informed me that i now officially have a pixie hair cut. apparently this was a necessary step in the process of re-growing out my hair, but i thought i might fall out of the chair when i saw how much of my hair she was cutting. yikes!
and now i return my thoughts to generalized stokes equations and the finer points of the relationship between laplace and fourier transforms.
i rolled out of bed around 7:30 this morning and was on the road for a nice 20-miler before 8a. i was running loops around town lake so i could watch the regatta. i have no idea how many teams there were, but people were racing the entire time i was out there. i think i even saw brian racing up and down the shore coaching (or maybe just watching today?).
as i mentioned in an earlier post, the goal of this week was to jump my run mileage up. in the past when i have done this, i've generally been moving pretty slowly on my long run at the end of the week. today i finished, stretched, then looked at the clock and sat there wondering if the batteries were dying. despite the fact that i felt like crap for most of the summer, i am a lot stronger because of it. and its not just on the bike. i think its time to make the run mileage go even higher and see what happens. i need to find another ultra to enter too.
anyways, after my run and a quick lunch, my roommates and i went shopping. i am happy to report i actually found things i like and have something to wear at the GHaus party in a couple weeks! i have also discovered halter tops look good with short hair. as an aside, the hairdresser yesterday informed me that i now officially have a pixie hair cut. apparently this was a necessary step in the process of re-growing out my hair, but i thought i might fall out of the chair when i saw how much of my hair she was cutting. yikes!
and now i return my thoughts to generalized stokes equations and the finer points of the relationship between laplace and fourier transforms.
Friday, October 24, 2008
halloween preparations
the midterm didn't go so well. it was supposed to be a 75 minute test, but after 90 minutes, no one in the room had even budged. there were two problems. i didn't finish the second. several people turned in extra sheets of paper. the derivations were long and not something any of us do regularly in our research. i was pretty upset upon leaving the test, and to make matters worse, 30 minutes after the in-class exam, the take-home portion of the exam went out. ugh. its due on monday, but i have it pretty much done now. i think i'm going to turn it in tomorrow just so i can have a day to relax this weekend.
fortunately, this week saw my training go up. by the end of my run tomorrow morning, i'll have logged 60 miles this week. my legs actually feel pretty good. its less than 2 months to go before dallas...which also means less than 2 months to go before my semester ends.
i ran into a friend from the summer ride today. she too is swamped with work this semester. we were laughing about counting down days until its over. i suppose this isn't the best way to go about one's semester, but what can you do. i had a meeting with my advisor yesterday and as there do not seem to be classes offered which would be particularly useful for me, he thought it might be good for me to just not take classes. so it appears that i will be signed up for the department seminar and 8 units of research credit.
thoughts of traveling are dancing through my head as a result of the possibility of a classless term. i know of a group going to hike camino de santiago in spain in the spring (for a week) and dropped someone an email to find out more about it.
mostly when i think about this past summer now, my initial thought is always, what in the world happened? and my answer to myself is, i don't know and then for while afterwards i tend to feel like a freshly healed wound was just re-opened (as i currently actually have such a wound from testing out new running gear last weekend, i can assure you that it is on my top ten list of things i don't really want to keep experiencing). i think what makes it most difficult is the not knowing. i don't even know where to start trying. i think the weirdest thing too is that i invested so much time and energy into making that trip happen that i didn't have time for much else. when i arrived back in austin, i suddenly didn't have the person i was closest to, and i felt like i was starting again from ground zero, despite having supposedly lived here for the better part of a year. i'm not sure i've really even had time to process that either because of the jump right back into school! one step at a time i suppose!
in the meantime, i have more important (?) things to worry about: pumpkin carving and halloween costumes. the carving festivites are supposed to commence early next week after dinner one night with my housemates. the artist in the house has even started coaching us about drawing our design the day before or earlier in the day and then coming back to it to make sure we like it before fully committing (sheesh!). honestly, i'll probably dive right in anyways. several of us are working on matching costumes. mine may in part be influenced by my hair. i'm off to try a friend's hairdresser and see if she can do something for my rather spikey do!
fortunately, this week saw my training go up. by the end of my run tomorrow morning, i'll have logged 60 miles this week. my legs actually feel pretty good. its less than 2 months to go before dallas...which also means less than 2 months to go before my semester ends.
i ran into a friend from the summer ride today. she too is swamped with work this semester. we were laughing about counting down days until its over. i suppose this isn't the best way to go about one's semester, but what can you do. i had a meeting with my advisor yesterday and as there do not seem to be classes offered which would be particularly useful for me, he thought it might be good for me to just not take classes. so it appears that i will be signed up for the department seminar and 8 units of research credit.
thoughts of traveling are dancing through my head as a result of the possibility of a classless term. i know of a group going to hike camino de santiago in spain in the spring (for a week) and dropped someone an email to find out more about it.
mostly when i think about this past summer now, my initial thought is always, what in the world happened? and my answer to myself is, i don't know and then for while afterwards i tend to feel like a freshly healed wound was just re-opened (as i currently actually have such a wound from testing out new running gear last weekend, i can assure you that it is on my top ten list of things i don't really want to keep experiencing). i think what makes it most difficult is the not knowing. i don't even know where to start trying. i think the weirdest thing too is that i invested so much time and energy into making that trip happen that i didn't have time for much else. when i arrived back in austin, i suddenly didn't have the person i was closest to, and i felt like i was starting again from ground zero, despite having supposedly lived here for the better part of a year. i'm not sure i've really even had time to process that either because of the jump right back into school! one step at a time i suppose!
in the meantime, i have more important (?) things to worry about: pumpkin carving and halloween costumes. the carving festivites are supposed to commence early next week after dinner one night with my housemates. the artist in the house has even started coaching us about drawing our design the day before or earlier in the day and then coming back to it to make sure we like it before fully committing (sheesh!). honestly, i'll probably dive right in anyways. several of us are working on matching costumes. mine may in part be influenced by my hair. i'm off to try a friend's hairdresser and see if she can do something for my rather spikey do!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
mid-term fun
the craziness that is mid-terms is almost over. i spent the entire weekend save a 3 hour run and a walk to the library inside doing homework and studying. ugh. fortunately, however, i think this means my brain finally turned back on. yeah! i can now tell you more than you'd ever like to know about how to build a model to show that tumors grow assymetrically (writing the code for it was my saturday afternoon project), how you can analyze a bunch of genetic data using anova and what population dynamics for wolves and bunnies look like.
for my exam tomorrow, the professor came up with a profound insight on what to study for the exam: how to solve any order of differential equation without a computer. the class's response to this? um, shouldn't we have to know the stuff from our class notes? apparently not. we just have to know how to solve math problems. given what the problem sets have looked like so far in this class, i think the class (myself included) is rather scared. the professor gave us feedback forms yesterday to fill out so we could comment on how we thought the class was going so far for the semester. he sent out an email within an hour of the end of class clearly concerned with the feedback he got. as i discovered earlier today, i had forgotten to turn mine in, so evidently my classmates are deriving about the same amount of joy out of this class as i am.
in running news, its less than two months until dallas. i decided that recovery from travel and my last race had gone on long enough, so this week starts back to two-a-days a couple days a week. i'm still not quite on this time zone (its really easy to stay up really late, but harder to get up early in the morning), so mornings are a little rough, but after i start actually running, i'm feeling pretty good.
for my exam tomorrow, the professor came up with a profound insight on what to study for the exam: how to solve any order of differential equation without a computer. the class's response to this? um, shouldn't we have to know the stuff from our class notes? apparently not. we just have to know how to solve math problems. given what the problem sets have looked like so far in this class, i think the class (myself included) is rather scared. the professor gave us feedback forms yesterday to fill out so we could comment on how we thought the class was going so far for the semester. he sent out an email within an hour of the end of class clearly concerned with the feedback he got. as i discovered earlier today, i had forgotten to turn mine in, so evidently my classmates are deriving about the same amount of joy out of this class as i am.
in running news, its less than two months until dallas. i decided that recovery from travel and my last race had gone on long enough, so this week starts back to two-a-days a couple days a week. i'm still not quite on this time zone (its really easy to stay up really late, but harder to get up early in the morning), so mornings are a little rough, but after i start actually running, i'm feeling pretty good.
Friday, October 17, 2008
fall!
on the plane on tuesday as we were landing in denver, the pilot announced that it was 2 degrees C or approximately 36 degrees F. i remember being shocked and thinking, its october! how can that be?! thank goodness i'm coming from somewhere it was 90+ degrees and going somewhere were it is also 90+ degrees.
well, apparently someone switched the fall button on yesterday morning in austin. wednesday it was still in the 90s, and yesterday it wasn't. today, i'm walking around in jeans and a sweater and wishing i was wearing another layer. the leaves are still green, but maybe they will change soon too. i'll have to find a pumpkin to carve or something. in any case, it is great weather for running.
well, apparently someone switched the fall button on yesterday morning in austin. wednesday it was still in the 90s, and yesterday it wasn't. today, i'm walking around in jeans and a sweater and wishing i was wearing another layer. the leaves are still green, but maybe they will change soon too. i'll have to find a pumpkin to carve or something. in any case, it is great weather for running.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
back in texas
i'm not sure putting words to my weekend would do it justice at this point. my roommates pointed out that i have a smile on my face again, so that i think sums up my trip.
congrats to heidi and jon on their marriage!
congrats to neil and nick on successful im kona finishes!
i arrived back in texas and went from the airport straight to class. i even walked in carrying my bag. the next eight days or so are going to be crazy busy with work...yeah midterms.
congrats to heidi and jon on their marriage!
congrats to neil and nick on successful im kona finishes!
i arrived back in texas and went from the airport straight to class. i even walked in carrying my bag. the next eight days or so are going to be crazy busy with work...yeah midterms.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
5:17
that would be my finish time from yesterday. it is 21 minutes faster than my previous half-im time. my swim split was 32 minutes and change (we think the swim was short, either that or there was a ridiculous current when coming down the back stretch). my bike split was 2:43, which is an average of 20.3 mph, and my run split was 1:53, which is 8:41/mi pace. this race was the perfect reminder of how endurance races are really just tests of how well you can control/deal with your emotions and how well you feed yourself.
the swim: this swim confirmed something i had long suspected but haven't really tested much. i am terrified of fresh water--lakes, rivers, etc. i think they're gross, and the general murkiness just freaks me out, much the same way i think some people feel about the ocean. i've done a fair amount of open water swimming, but it has always been in the ocean. anyways, the race was held in a reservoir in austin. after having decided that i was winging this race anyways, i didn't bother to do any practice open water swims. i think i had a panic attack in the first 200m because the water was so dark and there were plants wrapping around my arms. i took a couple strokes breast stroke style, calmed myself down and moved to the outside of the pack. i had to swim farther, but that was okay. a few hundred meters of this, and i got used to the darkness and was able to move back into the pack.
the race did end up being wetsuit legal. i think this is because the race officials deliberately went to find the coldest part of the lake and then took the water temperature there. i was expecting the water to be frigid, so i went to put my feet in the water to prepare myself. the water felt great though, and actually, by the last couple hundred meters i was sweating during the swim. i remember swimming along wondering how the people in full wetsuits were surviving because the water was so warm (i was wearing tri shorts and a sleeveless tri top).
the bike: i was a little worried about the bike at first for a couple reasons. first, the last time i raced on this bike was kona...where i had the misfortune to get 3 flats. well, when i got to transition yesterday morning, my rear tire was completely flat, and as luck would have it, i only had one spare tube on me that had a long stem valve. the mavic people gave me an extra tube though, and i changed my tube out before the race started. the other reason i was worried, which was related, was that i only had one spare tube and one CO2 cartridge in my saddle bag. again, i thought i had more at home, but i couldn't find anything as i was packing saturday night. knowing what happened the last time i had raced on the bike, i knew that one set of flat fixing essentials might not be good. since i didn't have the option to buy more at that point, i figured i would just hope for the best. i am happy to report, i had no flats.
my other issue with the bike was related to timing. i don't have a computer on my tri bike because i like to race by feel. however, i also haven't been wearing a watch since i lost it somewhere in alaska. as a result, i had no way of knowing what time it was to keep myself on track with calories and fluids on the bike. i had maybe 500 calories total and about 72 oz of fluids (some of which were also the calories). in short, i was definitely below where i should have been, but i didn't really know. i sort of gauged it on distance, but again, i had no idea how fast i was going. maybe it is time to get a watch.
after the panic attack on the swim, i got on the bike thinking, you know, i have no expectations for this race, and i just rode my bike to alaska. why not time trial the bike? i have always raced conservatively, and it just seemed like it might be fun to, well, not. so that's what i did. women didn't pass me, though there were a couple around me that were going about the same pace as me, and i spent most of the ride with the guys, which was a lot of fun. i think it was at the point when i was looking at the people riding around me that i realized maybe i had gotten a bit stronger at cycling.
the run: despite saying i wasn't going to ride conservatively, i think i did to some extent, because otherwise i have no way of explaining my run. i started running and felt alright, but i started to feel great about 5 miles in after having gone up a hill they named 'quadzilla.' i started picking up the pace again, but by about mile 10, i was starting to get tired. my nutrition was still pretty bad because i just didn't want to eat or drink anything. i tried forcing down gels and gatorade and definitely got calories and fluids in, but not as much as i needed. the last two miles or so, i think i was nearing the bonk zone. the cloud cover had cleared so it was just sunny and hot and the course was exposed. i passed leya at the turn around in the expo center on my second lap, and then leya passed me going up quadzilla (my second time, her first time) a few miles later (i was coaching leya and her husband gerald when they met several years ago in honolulu. they moved to austin about a year before i did).
i picked up the pace for the last couple hundred meters or so, as much as one could pick up the pace when one is that tired. there is a clock above the finish line that is set to the time when the first wave starts the race, so it was about 14 minutes faster then my chip time. i remember as i was starting my second lap (and near the finish line) hearing the announcer say something about it being a little before 4:30 race time and thinking, maybe i should stop and tell him his clock must be wrong. there is no way i could be going that fast. well, when i was crossing the finish line, the time said 5:30, which even without adjusting for my start time was faster than my previous half-im pr. i was pretty stoked when i crossed the finish line.
after the race, i got food and a massage and hung out with some friends...and apparently the guy who won the race. the field of pros was stacked, which was kind of exciting, although i never really saw them because of the course layout. i was kind of surprised that there were that many people there given that kona is next weekend.
one thing that this weekend brought back to me was my sense of competition. i don't think of myself as a particularly competitive person. i went to go pick up my packet on friday night though and thoughts of splits and paces danced through my head. i didn't have an expectation for the race, as i mentioned, but that doesn't necessarily, in my mind at least, equate to going out with the intention to sandbag it. for me, as i mentioned in at least one earlier post, the race was an attempt to get some of myself back, and i wanted to be completely exhausted at the end of it, regardless of how fast or slow i had to go to achieve that. i suppose when i race, i always go out in search of a pr, though i don't really know enough of the field in this area yet to be able to say i want to be faster than a particular person. what can i say--type a triathlete, at your service.
i just got asked to start coaching again too, something i haven't done since moving to texas, though its something i have definitely been missing. i think in someways not doing it has made all the sports med related stuff more appealing--a subconscious effort to get involved with the things that got me interested in what i do in the first place.
the swim: this swim confirmed something i had long suspected but haven't really tested much. i am terrified of fresh water--lakes, rivers, etc. i think they're gross, and the general murkiness just freaks me out, much the same way i think some people feel about the ocean. i've done a fair amount of open water swimming, but it has always been in the ocean. anyways, the race was held in a reservoir in austin. after having decided that i was winging this race anyways, i didn't bother to do any practice open water swims. i think i had a panic attack in the first 200m because the water was so dark and there were plants wrapping around my arms. i took a couple strokes breast stroke style, calmed myself down and moved to the outside of the pack. i had to swim farther, but that was okay. a few hundred meters of this, and i got used to the darkness and was able to move back into the pack.
the race did end up being wetsuit legal. i think this is because the race officials deliberately went to find the coldest part of the lake and then took the water temperature there. i was expecting the water to be frigid, so i went to put my feet in the water to prepare myself. the water felt great though, and actually, by the last couple hundred meters i was sweating during the swim. i remember swimming along wondering how the people in full wetsuits were surviving because the water was so warm (i was wearing tri shorts and a sleeveless tri top).
the bike: i was a little worried about the bike at first for a couple reasons. first, the last time i raced on this bike was kona...where i had the misfortune to get 3 flats. well, when i got to transition yesterday morning, my rear tire was completely flat, and as luck would have it, i only had one spare tube on me that had a long stem valve. the mavic people gave me an extra tube though, and i changed my tube out before the race started. the other reason i was worried, which was related, was that i only had one spare tube and one CO2 cartridge in my saddle bag. again, i thought i had more at home, but i couldn't find anything as i was packing saturday night. knowing what happened the last time i had raced on the bike, i knew that one set of flat fixing essentials might not be good. since i didn't have the option to buy more at that point, i figured i would just hope for the best. i am happy to report, i had no flats.
my other issue with the bike was related to timing. i don't have a computer on my tri bike because i like to race by feel. however, i also haven't been wearing a watch since i lost it somewhere in alaska. as a result, i had no way of knowing what time it was to keep myself on track with calories and fluids on the bike. i had maybe 500 calories total and about 72 oz of fluids (some of which were also the calories). in short, i was definitely below where i should have been, but i didn't really know. i sort of gauged it on distance, but again, i had no idea how fast i was going. maybe it is time to get a watch.
after the panic attack on the swim, i got on the bike thinking, you know, i have no expectations for this race, and i just rode my bike to alaska. why not time trial the bike? i have always raced conservatively, and it just seemed like it might be fun to, well, not. so that's what i did. women didn't pass me, though there were a couple around me that were going about the same pace as me, and i spent most of the ride with the guys, which was a lot of fun. i think it was at the point when i was looking at the people riding around me that i realized maybe i had gotten a bit stronger at cycling.
the run: despite saying i wasn't going to ride conservatively, i think i did to some extent, because otherwise i have no way of explaining my run. i started running and felt alright, but i started to feel great about 5 miles in after having gone up a hill they named 'quadzilla.' i started picking up the pace again, but by about mile 10, i was starting to get tired. my nutrition was still pretty bad because i just didn't want to eat or drink anything. i tried forcing down gels and gatorade and definitely got calories and fluids in, but not as much as i needed. the last two miles or so, i think i was nearing the bonk zone. the cloud cover had cleared so it was just sunny and hot and the course was exposed. i passed leya at the turn around in the expo center on my second lap, and then leya passed me going up quadzilla (my second time, her first time) a few miles later (i was coaching leya and her husband gerald when they met several years ago in honolulu. they moved to austin about a year before i did).
i picked up the pace for the last couple hundred meters or so, as much as one could pick up the pace when one is that tired. there is a clock above the finish line that is set to the time when the first wave starts the race, so it was about 14 minutes faster then my chip time. i remember as i was starting my second lap (and near the finish line) hearing the announcer say something about it being a little before 4:30 race time and thinking, maybe i should stop and tell him his clock must be wrong. there is no way i could be going that fast. well, when i was crossing the finish line, the time said 5:30, which even without adjusting for my start time was faster than my previous half-im pr. i was pretty stoked when i crossed the finish line.
after the race, i got food and a massage and hung out with some friends...and apparently the guy who won the race. the field of pros was stacked, which was kind of exciting, although i never really saw them because of the course layout. i was kind of surprised that there were that many people there given that kona is next weekend.
one thing that this weekend brought back to me was my sense of competition. i don't think of myself as a particularly competitive person. i went to go pick up my packet on friday night though and thoughts of splits and paces danced through my head. i didn't have an expectation for the race, as i mentioned, but that doesn't necessarily, in my mind at least, equate to going out with the intention to sandbag it. for me, as i mentioned in at least one earlier post, the race was an attempt to get some of myself back, and i wanted to be completely exhausted at the end of it, regardless of how fast or slow i had to go to achieve that. i suppose when i race, i always go out in search of a pr, though i don't really know enough of the field in this area yet to be able to say i want to be faster than a particular person. what can i say--type a triathlete, at your service.
i just got asked to start coaching again too, something i haven't done since moving to texas, though its something i have definitely been missing. i think in someways not doing it has made all the sports med related stuff more appealing--a subconscious effort to get involved with the things that got me interested in what i do in the first place.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
race update
the last rumor i heard was that there were 2300 athletes. this may not seem like a very large number to those unfamiliar with the sport, but i'll try to help you understand. have you ever seen a koi pond? when you drop a piece of bread into the water, the fish swim over each other in a frenzy trying to get to the bread. now imagine that instead of fish, there were people. ironman races have "mass starts" which means that everyone starts at the same time. so, this weekend, when the gun goes off, 2300 people will all start swimming at the same time, in the same small bit of water on the most direct route possible to the next buoy on the course. talk about an adrenaline rush.
i have been really happy lately and, in the last couple of days, find myself smiling for no reason at all. honestly, i'm not sure what the cause of this is. i'm not sure if it was evident from the descriptions i have written, but i've been getting that high during my workouts, for example, despite the fact that my workouts are shorter because of the taper. maybe though it is also a product of being excited about the next week and half. one week from today i'll be in hawaii!
i have been really happy lately and, in the last couple of days, find myself smiling for no reason at all. honestly, i'm not sure what the cause of this is. i'm not sure if it was evident from the descriptions i have written, but i've been getting that high during my workouts, for example, despite the fact that my workouts are shorter because of the taper. maybe though it is also a product of being excited about the next week and half. one week from today i'll be in hawaii!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
but apparently my brother will be
i made a post yesterday with a cartoon about the economy crisis. my brother (who is a trader) then calls me last night and says yeah, so we thought they weren't do any layoffs in my department, but i may not have a job by the end of the week. i was going to try and be consoling, but then he told me that if that happens he's going to try and play professional volleyball in europe for a bit. while i would never hope for anyone to lose their job, my brother sounds pretty excited about his backup plan and i can't exactly say i'm not supportive of the idea. in fact, i think he'd really enjoy it. so now i'll just hope that whatever happens this week happens for the best.
while we on the phone i told him about a bit of a pickle i seem to have gotten myself into. actually, it would probably be more correct to say i've been in this pickle for a couple years it just didn't occur to me that i should be concerned until recently. regardless, this incident confirmed a suspicion i had. sometimes a cup of tea will not solve every problem. however, talking to your sibling and having them make fun of the whole thing and how you got yourself into whatever pickle you're in in the first place will. i went to sleep last night chuckling at the ridiculousness (at times) that is my life.
only four days left until the half-ironman. the last report i heard was that the water was still too warm to wear wetsuits (yeah!). i've been keeping an eye on the weather though and the highs for the day seem to be dropping heading into the weekend. if we get weather in the low to mid 80s (which at this point is what is predicted) i'll be thrilled. my taper seems to be going well. my legs feel alright and i feel smooth in the water. arguably i should have done some open water swims in freshwater (all my open water swimming has been in the ocean), but i'm not out to set any records on sunday, so it'll be a good learning experience.
while we on the phone i told him about a bit of a pickle i seem to have gotten myself into. actually, it would probably be more correct to say i've been in this pickle for a couple years it just didn't occur to me that i should be concerned until recently. regardless, this incident confirmed a suspicion i had. sometimes a cup of tea will not solve every problem. however, talking to your sibling and having them make fun of the whole thing and how you got yourself into whatever pickle you're in in the first place will. i went to sleep last night chuckling at the ridiculousness (at times) that is my life.
only four days left until the half-ironman. the last report i heard was that the water was still too warm to wear wetsuits (yeah!). i've been keeping an eye on the weather though and the highs for the day seem to be dropping heading into the weekend. if we get weather in the low to mid 80s (which at this point is what is predicted) i'll be thrilled. my taper seems to be going well. my legs feel alright and i feel smooth in the water. arguably i should have done some open water swims in freshwater (all my open water swimming has been in the ocean), but i'm not out to set any records on sunday, so it'll be a good learning experience.
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