This bear is out of hibernation

The last four runs have been fantastic. The legs feels like brand new springs.

I got a tweet the other day from a friend's stream saying the Mexican smoke is back. I found a NASA satellite image that we should all check to see if the smoke is making its way to Central Texas at the particular time we decide to run.

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.

More of the Same Please

My one resolution for 2009 was to see at least one live music performance per month. After all, inhabiting the self proclaimed 'Live Music Capital of the World' requires one to show some support of some kind at least once a month. Last week's performance by the The Eggmen at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar completed the year's resolution. Ditto for 2010.

Fitness still plays into the resolution matrix somehow. Each year it's becoming more like brushing my teeth and washing the car than a mid-life crisis response. The whole racing and training aspect is overly hyped and as I'm not competitive in this area of my nature, I'd rather just let it go. That's not to say I won't enjoy running down the street with 15,000 people at the Austin Marathon and 13-miler. Having a race on the calendar creates just enough motivation to get out of bed each day and go for a run and do a couple extra pushups. All training schedules will be purged from the harddrives, with the printed ones meeting their maker in the shredder.

My bro does want to do a half-iron with me in October so that'll take some motivation. More than I have now. I have just enough to get through a morning strength workout of 30 minutes and some sort of run in the afternoon. Sometimes one and not the other. Half-iron means two or three times per day every day or almost every day with the nutrition factor thrown in. Less beer, less sweets, less food overall. Of course I could indulge and just suffer for six or seven hours in the heat come October. Ugh....

Ice Skating Outdoors is Much Better

The outdoor Wollman Ice-skating Rink in Central Park did not disappoint. Perfect mild-for-NYC winter temperatures with Christmas carols playing out of the speakers hidden among the rocks and trees made for a great experience. Even though the ice was rough and the rink crowded Kayla dazzled the kids with effortless turns and spins. She slowed down enough to skate backwards, holding my hands and pulling me along.

Afterwards it was time to find a hot dog cart. The dog wasn't as good as I remember but it tasted just good enough. After skating and walking what seemed like ten miles, I would have eaten cardboard with a dab of mustard.

With ten seconds to spare before the curtain was opened to start the show, we sat down for the best 90 minutes of entertainment I've had in a long, long time. It was well worth the price. The Rockettes are amazing. The singing waitstaff at Ellen's Stardust Diner where we ate prior to the show were equally amazing. Broadway wannabes who are just a few months short of making it big sang on the tabletops and as they walked through the restaurant.

New York, New York Christmas 2009

New York was one of the last places I thought I would miss. The last time I was here in 1997 I was sick and had a so-so time. The guy playing non-stop drums in Times Square, just below our hotel room may have had something to do with it. Fast forward to 2009 and 20 blocks north, next to Central Park and needless to say the drummer is gone, even though we're next to Lincoln Center with the Philharmonic and The Julliard School. They have really good drummers. So if I lack sleep this trip, at least the percussion will be in tune.

Not having a fever or a pounding headache has seemed to make a difference. The cab ride from the airport was scary and could have given 90% of people a migraine. Are they never scary? The cabby did cut in front of all kind of cars, pedestrians and cyclists to get us to the hotel fast. Key work on fast. I did notice the one person he stopped for was a NYPD officer in a neon-yellow jacket. Smart move.

The first order of business, outside of dropping off the luggage, was a slice of sicilian pizza. In the rain without an umbrella we found Francesco Pizzeria on the NYC Upper Westside. Sicilian pizza, calzone and about 100 other dishes I wanted to consume on the spot. No lie, the best pizzeria I found in the rain.

After filling my gut with pizza I found the Apple store on my way back to the hotel. I had Facebooked 24 hours ago that I would soon be listening to a jazz band next to Central Park with a glass of wine. The comment came to life sort of. The jazz band turned out to be a jazz ensemble from The Julliard School and I had already consumed the wine at the pizzeria. By the way the Apple store NYC is split over two levels. Otherwise, it's about the same as the Austin store, except it doesn't have a jazz ensemble playing from The Julliard School. Yeah.

Running Again

I think the vacation from running is over. I felt like running today and packed a bag of stuff for a run later this afternoon. This time around I let my urge to run again tell me when it was time to start back up. By the time the San Antonio Rock-n-Roll half was over, I was sick of running. I think my feet were too. The blisters have healed up. The plantar fasciitis is all but a memory and the knees are good.

I'm also wanting to get back in the pool. Runner's World Magazine had a feature called Wet Equity in the January 2010 issue available now that really gets into detail about pool running. I felt so weird running in the pool last summer with swimming a couple laps freestyle and then run a couple of laps but wouldn't you know it, the article advises doing that very thing.

Here's more on greenhouse gases and the trouble they cause. Luckily in the winter the air is tolerable during the noon hour or afternoon if there's an updraft to carry the pollutants away. That way I don't have to wake up before the sunrise to get my run in.

A side note. Three of the last four cars I rode in didn't have the air conditioner setting to recirculate the inside air. I didn't make it a point to check when I first got in the car. It was only when I smelled something bad like exhaust that I would then look for the inside air button.

Catch-22s

In order to run a marathon or even 10 or 13 miles you have to at least plan a few weeks, if not months ahead. I mean, sure, you could wake up one morning at 4:00 a.m. and think you could drive down to the race of the week and sign up at that moment. It's been done many times and the people who did this probably survived.

But to do it the "right way" or the idea that you have to start to prepare so far in advance and that you will get to the race in the shape that you envisioned or that everything that needs to line up does so is a crap shoot. So many things can go wrong between the time you need to register for the race, make reservations and the time you line up at the starting line.

Such was the case with the San Antonio Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon. Sickness got me two months out and on race day my body decided to flush fluids just prior to the race. My stomach didn't settle for six miles which was a first. I did have three good miles before the blisters started to appear, even though I was wearing the same socks I always do. Blown calf two months out, etc.

So there's a Catch-22 every race. You plan and train but come race day, the odds are against you having the run of your life. Out of 20-some-odd races I've experienced a great race twice. One half marathon and one 5K. Both were fantastic weather and training and without sickness but that's less than 10%. Most of the time it's too cold or too windy or too rainy or too hot. Too hot happens a lot. Must be the global warming thing.

I finished the run. Met some good people. Had a great time in San Antonio. Now disillusioned about signing up for races. I'm in a training rut that I need to figure out. Since the race the gym visit was bleh, the run was bleh, the home training has been bleh. Rut. Rut. Rut.

The rut will give way. But to what I have no idea. Maybe others just keep at it knowing that most runs are hit-and-miss. Every once in awhile a run or race comes along that blows your socks off and that makes the others fade from memory.

Link Friday

I really just have one link this week due to me looking for reasons why my leg hurts and what to do about my leg hurting.

Ask the Experts: Prevent Injuries

Looking at anatomy diagrams it's apparent that my injury isn't the Achilles, but more like Flexor Hallucis Longus or the Peroneneus Brevis. I also remembered in my workout the day before the injury that I placed my feet underneath a weight machine in the gym to do some crunches on a Swiss Ball. The feet underneath the machine pinned them in such a way to cause irritation in the feet and shin area. Right where I now have pain.

I was reading the above linked article and it has some great information about my injury as did the Competitor article titled Running Past 40 in the Sept. '09 issue. Bottom line. Stay off it for three days and then half my long run. So it looks like Saturday's run will only be six to seven miles which should make the legs feel good.

Wheel Fell Off

As luck would have it that after I confirmed hotel reservations for the San Antonio Rock-n-Roll Marathon and Half something would happen within minutes, like a leg falling off or a foot. It wasn't minutes but it was hours. This morning's run looked promising at the start. Cool weather, the rain had stopped, my inflammation from the cold I had over a month ago had stopped (more on this in a minute). Yes, the run looked pretty promising. I started warming up like I do every Monday and Wednesday and I could tell the warm up was going to take longer than normal. I was about two miles into the warm up when I decided to start the workout and accelerate. That's when the wheel came off.

Below my calf and to the side a little which may be part of the Achilles tendon I felt a sharp pain. Not like one of the dull pains that now crop up daily but are never in the same place, two days in a row. This pain was new. As I walked back to the house the only thing I could think of that was different was the removal of the orthotic. I had thought since all of the PF pain was gone I could go back to just using insoles. Wrong. I might be able to, as I did a long stretch of the calf muscle and tendon half way through the warm up. But I think it was the missing orthotic. Running with it for the last nine months has caused my running form to adapt to it and when it was gone, it was like the ball bearings were removed.

But looking to the bright side I get to try out some rehab products. I went to Sports Authority and picked up a pool running belt. As I tend to run in the shallow end, which will strain the Achilles, I need to move to the deep end and thus the need for the belt to keep me afloat. I also picked up a calf/shin support to wear during the day and when I get to run, which may be Friday or Saturday at the earliest. I also picked up some KT Tape or Kinesiology Therapeutic Tape. You may have seen several athletes wearing the tape that looks like a foot-wide spider is on their shoulder. I saw Olympic Gold Medalist Kerri Walsh wearing it while playing volleyball. I've heard good things about it. I'll try it out and see.

So about the inflammation. I quit Diet Cokes and all other sodas, except for plain soda water, about two months ago. The reason for quitting had to do with the aspartame. Besides the loss of caffeine, I noticed my inflammation didn't clear as fast after I had a cold as it did when I drank Diet Coke. The only thing I can attribute this to is that I've heard Coke is able to take off the acid crust on a battery, so it had no problem clearing up some inflammation. Once I had a Diet Coke, I had no problem with inflammation. Interesting.

Want to read something interesting? See how coffee and tea are decaffeinated.

90% ankle is back to 100%

The ankle I turned yesterday has returned to 100%. No discoloration, the swelling went down with ice. It's all good.

ACL Plan B in Place

After my normal run this morning, I ventured across the freeway to do a little trail exploring. I need to find a 2-hour run that's as far away as possible from the cluster that will be the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend. I found enough trails and a way to get there without having to cross the freeway. There are some trails that run to some tunnels under the freeway. They're dark, long and a little creepy but it's better than sucking all the exhaust from above.

It's hard to believe I haven't used this trail more often as it's super close to the house and is hardly used.

Just as I was finishing I stepped in a hole and I felt my ankle go sideways as I braced my fall crashing down on my hands. I think it'll be ok as there's hardly any swelling.