Endurance Events No More

Participating in the Longhorn 70.3 Ironman on Oct. 17 for the third time proved one thing; I'm done with endurance-type events. I don't know if it was the bike crash or not being able to take in nutrition during the race that made me feel so bad about long-distance triathlons. The first Longhorn 70.3 race I felt great. The second one I had mechanical problems on the bike and landed in a bed of ants so that was probably the start of my ill feelings towards the event. I signed up for the 2010 event because my brother Kevin wanted to do one.

Endurance races are for the young. I'd rather be done with the event in under two hours and get on with it; sitting with friends, drinking a beer and having a meal.

Training for endurance sports take too much time away from other things I like to do.

I'd rather go fast for minutes than go slow for hours.

I noticed some avid runners, three-to-four years ahead of me in age and in my running group, were having issues with MCLs, bone-on-bone knee problems and it was time for me to take a long, hard look at what my outcome may be if I keep up with the amount of miles I'm running.

So it was a good ride while it lasted. I'm getting out with my knees intact and enough cartilage to last a few more years.

Bad Shoes

I have passed along most of the free pairs of running shoes I accumulated, from sponsored training sessions, to others whose feet are a better fit for them. One pair remained though (not New Balance) and I made sure they were designated gym shoes and would never see the light of day as running shoes. Until yesterday. I got to the trail and found I had left my numero uno pair of New Balance on the deck drying. Ugh! I felt a slight rubbing on the right side of the right foot but disregarded it inconsequential as I wasn't over five miles for the evening. I gasped when I saw my little toe while getting dressed for a gym workout today at noon. A reddish bloody blister.

The numero dos pair of New Balance will find themselves in the trunk of the car tonight and that's where they'll stay, except for when they're on my feet while on the trail. Other than the wrong shoes, the runs on the trail in the heat have been ok. I'm already getting acclimated and the Barton Springs cool-downs at sundown are wonderful.

Wednesday nights I get the added benefit of listening to Blues on the Green, a weekly concert in the park. Traffic is a little hairy and I end up parking down the road which adds another mile to the run but it's not a problem.

Maximum Weight/Low Reps Done Until Nov.

The gym free-weight workouts of maximum weight with low reps needs to be removed from my training plan. My shoulders and arms take too long to recover to have anything close to a good swim the next day. Even if they recover, it seems everything is tighter than they should be. I find myself stopping every 100 or 200 yards to rub the area where it's tight. So I'll set aside the workout until November, even though I was noticing good results from it.

I've learned every workout needs a period of time off during the year. Swimming is only enjoyable if I can take a few months away from it. Running is only possible if my legs and especially the knees get a break from the high impact for a couple of months. I look forward to going to the gym most when I haven't been in some time.

Visiting the Longhorn Half-Ironman Again This Coming October

There's only one thing that could get me back to do the Longhorn Half-Ironman again. If my brother called up and said, "Why don't we do it together?" He did.

There was a long pause of several weeks between the call and the registration. I think we were each feeling the other one out on level of seriousness. Yesterday, he registered. I manned up and registered as well.

I knew it would happen and that's why I started training a couple of weeks ago. I seem a lot more sore than I did the last time I trained for this race. I can really tell I took last winter easy.

Yesterday, I ran five miles in the heat to start to get acclimated. All I can say is thank God for Barton Springs. The 68-degree water is heaven for a dip and cooldown after summer runs.

Workouts for the day: (AM) 5K run, 1000 yard easy swim. (PM) weight machine circuits + 1 hour bike.

Phone Recluse No Longer

The Sprint HTC Evo 4G phone arrived last night.

• Android 2.1


• 1 GHz processor


• 3G and 4G capability


• GPS


• 8 megapixel camera


• 8 GB SD card

The Palm Treo never recovered from tagging along in the pool during my long swim. The dry rice trick didn't work. Many speculated on FB that I intentionally killed the Treo.

Separation of People and Toxins

"It may be that going forward we need to be thinking about the locations of industrial facilities and the locations of where people live and keeping a healthy distance between them."

Dr. Howard Frumkin
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

How safe is the air you're breathing, and where is it coming from? Tune in to "Toxic America," a two-night special investigation, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, June 2 and 3 at 8 p.m. ET.

Changes Over Time

"When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood” ~Sam Ewing

I just went and looked at two blogs I read daily when all into triathlons and marathons and one now requires an invitation and the other has allowed the domain to drop so it fails. I feel like I went home to look at the house I grew up in only to find a parking lot.

It tells me to move on. Nothing to see there.

This weekend is the Capital of Texas Triathlon. I have no urge to participate. I am nursing the hip back into shape after the Austin Half and a busted knee. Even if I was well I don't think I'd want to visit the race again. With all of the sewage problems finding a way to the swim course I think staying out of that water is the safest bet at this point.

Both the knee and hip are 100% and I think next week I'll be in the pool several times a week with no expectations. Just swimming and running and maybe some cycling. My brother still wants to look at the Austin 70.3 as a possible fall race.

First Lunch Run in a Long Time

I was debating whether or not to go to the gym at noon and by chance checked the levels of particulates before walking out the door. Austin had a 0.2 level of particulates. No gym workout was going to be able to compete with the cleanest air in a long time. Halfway into the run I remembered I had taken an antibiotic in the morning and as the UV Index was about eight and this was the most sun I'd seen since last October, I decided to head back to the office.

The left adductor pain has subsided since the Austin Half-marathon with more stretching. Just another issue to add to the list of things to watch out for and treat.

Ugh!

from the Austin American Statesman the other day...

City might add admission fee for two free-swim hours at Barton Springs

By Sarah Coppola | Wednesday, January 27, 2010, 12:16 PM

Austin’s Parks Department might charge an admission fee during one extra hour in the morning and evening at Barton Springs Pool.

The hours of 8-9 a.m. and 9-10 p.m. currently have lifeguards but no admission fee, and officials say attendance has grown so large, especially at night, that they must keep a full shift of lifeguards on duty.

Read the rest and attend the public hearing on the matter.

Many of those attending before 9:00 am are runners soaking their legs after a long run. At least on Saturday and Sunday mornings. If the City starts charging at 8:00 a.m., I think I'll permanently be found soaking my legs downstream in shallow runoff waters of the dog park. The water is just as cold as the water in the fenced Barton Springs pool. There are more snakes, turtles, dogs, ducks and people downstream in the dog park, but in many ways it's more interesting. And, best of all it's free. Well, free until the City decides to fence it off and charge a fee for it too.

Hibernation and Breasts

The cold front is just about to the ATX and we'll soon be in experiencing temps in the teens. As I have a 13-mile run on Valentine's Day, I should be hitting the trail just about each and ever day but all I want to do this time of year is lift weights and do the minimal amount of cardio to keep in half-ass shape. Three years in a row the same thing. Granted last year I had the injury and couldn't run but I don't think it really mattered.

On another topic, I went to pick up a chicken breast last night for Chicken & Dumplings. Although I have seen three or four movies about what's happening to the animals we eat, it had not registered so plainly as last night's visit at the grocery store. I think it hadn't registered as the two products were always separated by 30 feet of shelf space and so I would put one or the other in the basket and not think twice or do a comparison.

Side-by-side I had chicken breast packages. One organic, one not. One cost $9.00, the other cost $3.00. The organic chicken breasts were small. The non-organic breasts were HUGE and resembled turkey breasts more than their sisters in the other package. Thoughts that came to mind included, OMG, C'mon Man!, and the F-bomb; all within a matter of seconds. I chose the $9 organic breasts but it really was a challenge to put the HUGE $3 breasts back on the shelf.