A Letter to My Bike

Dear Bike (my Surly Cross Check),

How have you been? Have you been getting a lot of rest sitting in the garage? It shouldn’t have been that cold in there the last few months with the milder winter we’ve been having.

Oh sorry. You wouldn’t know about the weather. No, no, it’s not you. It’s me. I haven’t ridden you since January 7^th, and it was December 29^th before that. I’ve left you sitting un-ridden leaning up against the workbench in the garage since then. Of course, this has been the mildest winter since I’ve lived in Madison, so there really hasn’t been an excuse. I maybe just needed a break though, some time off. Again, it hasn’t been you. It’s been me.

Well, all of that is about the change though friend. My wife (you know that woman that often accompanies me in the garage?), she will be gone this weekend and early next week – and she’s taking the car. That leaves you and me good buddy. At the least, we’ll have to ride to work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. But, and I say this probably for the both of us, it would be good to work back into things, work out the kinks, and bike to work a few days this week.

With that said, I’ll come down to the garage tonight and we’ll do the quick once-over. Inflate tires, check the chain tension, and lube the chain if need be. We’ll get everything refreshed and ready to ride. We’ll get you ready first. After that it’s just up to me – up to me to get back into the groove of waking up that little bit earlier, packing work clothes, and suiting up for the elements.

Speaking of the elements, I want to warn you ahead of time. The next handful of work days are potentially supposed to be a hodgepodge of precipitation – rain, snow, sleet, mix. Are you ready for it? Good. I thought you would be.

20 Before 30: Update 2 - Good Luck for the Bride???

The title and theme for today’s post can be attributed to the odd wanderings my brain takes when I’m on a run. My head becomes completely clear, clear enough that there isn’t a filter to tell me if things are making sense or not. With that in mind, I came to the thought that the common advice for a bride on her wedding day was a good outline for the things I wanted to talk about in my next post.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

I don’t know who’s getting married and I sure as heck am not the bride, but here goes for the post –

Something old – I was looking at my old binder containing my old fashioned “pencil & paper” running log from when I was training for the 2006 Des Moines Marathon. On September 2^nd of that year, I ran 3 miles with a total time of 21:09, a 7:03 pace per mile. I looked at that and thought, “Sweet. That’s awesome. If I WAS that fast at one point, I have a good shot of running a 5K under 20:00.” While I saw optimism in looking back at my old “fastness”, I told my wife about my old times and she was bluntly realistic. “Honey, that’s just depressing. You’re five, almost six years older. Of course you were faster then.” Damn. Very true. I still keep focusing on the positive fact though that if I was faster then, I can be faster again.

Something new – Speaking of times, today I set my 2012 personal best for a 2 mile run. I’ve been getting closer and closer to breaking the 16 minute mark and finally did so today with a new record time of 15:54. The 2 mile route I took today was hilly at the start too, so that made me feel even better. I feel like I can still progress by leaps and bounds, but looking back to just two months ago I already have. In December, I was at the 17 minute mark for 2 mile runs. It would be great to continue to increase my pace by a minute over two miles every month from here on, but I doubt that will happen.

Something borrowed – Alright, I really have nothing here. Well except maybe that I went for my run on borrowed time today. My wife (a chemistry graduate student) had to go downtown to the lab to do some work and I had to take her, as the normally sparse Sunday afternoon parking situation would be made even worse with a Big Ten basketball game going on. Saying I was on borrowed time is a stretch though too to be honest as I had plenty of time to take my run, stretch, and shower before we had to go.

Something blue – Yesterday I finally ponied-up the cash for a new pair of running shoes. I had still been running in my Asics Gel Kayano shoes that I wore when I did the Madison Marathon in 2009! Not that I’ve done much running consistently since then, but I just shake my head in amazement that I had been running in shoes that not only were three years old, but that were approaching 1000 miles of use.

My new shoes that I picked up yesterday at Fleet Feet Madison are Mizuno Wave Nirvanas. They have stability and over-pronation control like the Asics but do so with much less weight. The Asics were much more cushioned, but almost too much so and with too much of cost in weight. Maybe I like that cushion when I was going long distances for marathon training, but for shorter speedier distance that I’m doing now, I wanted to feel the road more beneath my feet.

I’ve typically been using SOLE inserts in the past, but was convinced to try Superfeet insoles instead. Again, just like my new Mizunos compared to my Asics, the Superfeet insoles were much less bulky than the SOLEs. I’m using the green Superfeet which have a deeper heel cup and more supportive arch. I don’t have a high arch necessarily, but I find the insoles that have moderate support for the arch and metatarsals are best for me. I recently purchased some Teva hiking/walking shoes and my feet had been hurting from even light use because of not having enough support.

Oh! The blue part! The Mizuno Wave Nirvanas are blue!

Well there you have it, the old adage complete. Hopefully that gives this bri… er… runner some good luck. The shoes at least seemed to do the trick today!

20 Before 30: Update 1 - Shut Out

On Sunday, I felt rested and fresh enough to try hitting the track for a handful of paced 400s. There’s a high school just around the block so I did a little jog over there to use the track. I get a nice warm up run in, get all psyched up to do some hard running… and find the track gated up and locked. Disappointment. I’m not this hardcore so I just ended up doing a hard fast 2 mile run. Sure, it was still a run but I would have much rather done a speed workout doing laps on the track. Looking forward, I don’t know where I’m going to run now for speed work. I might just have to do it old school, and by that I mean like back in high school and laps on a nice flat city block. (I went to such a small school we didn’t have a track.) Perhaps I shouldn’t really be too concerned yet about doing speed work until I increase my mileage. As I’ve at most done 3 miles since starting up running again in November, I guess I shouldn’t worry myself about it again for a few weeks.

I can at least take solace in the fact that in the last two months my times for my 2 mile runs have gone significantly down. Times were just above the 17 minute mark, but now they are typically between 16 and 16:30. I don’t think I’m really doing anything to bring the times down, besides just simply running more. With that said, I think I can do better in that aspect as well. I’ve only been running three times a week now, but decided that I should be probably running four. Not only will I feel more “dedicated” that way, but also the weekly training plan will work out better that way. I can have a long run, a speed work day, and then two middle distance days. Well, that’s the plan for now anyway. My current at best 8 minute per mile pace is still a long way from 6:26…

2012 Goals

It’s been awhile since I’ve made any real running/biking goals, ones that I’ve felt sure enough to write down anyway. Probably my last goal was to do the Madison Marathon, but when was that May, 2009? It’s been three years since that and athletically I’ve felt stagnant without direction. I feel better with some goal work myself forward towards. With that said here are my goals for 2012 –

Run the CrazyLegs Classic

Begin training to run a 5K under 20 minutes

Run commute to work

Bike a century (100 miles) on my single speed bike

First off, you can see that running is back into my world. I always seem to go back and forth with my focus, back and forth between running and biking. Running has taken a back seat the last two years really, so its return has been a long time coming. There were also a few things with running that I felt a really needed to do. The first of those was to do CrazyLegs this year. The 5 mile race is the largest running event in Madison, one that I really feel shamed not to do. I did it back in 2009 and had a blast – even in the rain.

The second goal there maybe needs some explanation. Ever since high school cross country, a sub-20 5K was always a goal. Back then, I just couldn’t quite get there. Now, a decade later, who knows if I still can but I want to give it a good try. I’ll have to run many miles to get to the 6:26 mile pace needed (my best run lately was an 8:15), so I know it won’t happen this year. I do want to reach the goal though before I turn 30. I’m tentatively calling this my “20 Before 30” goal.

The next goal – to run commute to work – was my latest goal to dream up. Yes, it’s a bit odd and random but also a fun idea (I think anyway). I’ll bike to work the morning of day one and then run home that afternoon. The next morning, day two, I’ll run to work and then bike home that afternoon. I’ll have to plan ahead and bring an extra change of clothes with me that first day when I bike but that will be easy. The running might be the hardest part as it will be a 4.5 mile run each way. I can’t fathom running 4.5 miles right now, let alone back to back one afternoon and then the next morning. Still, it’s not like it’ll be a marathon or anything.

The last goal, my only biking goal, is also a bit goofy. I’ve given up on really being competitive with biking (I last raced in college), and instead just made it a point to have fun and have adventures. That’s really what a single speed is all about. You can’t take yourself too seriously, go that fast, or miss the scenery. With that, what better way to enjoy a day of biking than on a single speed for a distance of 100 miles? There’s a 140 mile loop all on bike trails that I wouldn’t mind doing, or biking 120 miles from Madison to my parents in eastern Iowa. I don’t know if either of those will end up being my century ride or if I’ll just plan out an exact 100 mile course, but either way I’ll have fun on the bike.

Those are my four running and biking goals for 2012. Hopefully not only do I accomplish them all, but also write updates about them here. I also have a goal of eating better and losing 10 – 15 pounds, but that’s for another post and a different blog.

The Tauntaun Hasn't Left the Echo Base Lately

Now that winter, more specifically the snow, finally hit Wisconsin a few weeks ago, I feel I must admit that I haven’t been biking to work much lately. Yep, lately the Snowspeeder (the car) has been used instead of the tauntaun (the bicycle) in the snowy Hoth-like outdoors. However, has it been the snow or cold that’s been keeping me off the bike? No, not really.

I was thrown of the biking routine in October because of a cold and I never really back going consistently since. Sure I had a few days here and there in October, November, and December but I haven’t had the same zeal about getting on the bike. I just don’t have the enthusiasm to get up that little bit earlier in the morning, brave the elements, and change into a different set of clothes when I get to work. Put more precisely, I feel burnt out.

I feel lazy saying that. Compared to some coworkers of who have 10 mile plus bike commutes, I only have a 5.5 mile commute each way. In the grand scheme though, it is more than just a jaunt down the block. In addition, looking back to 2010 and 2011, I collectively bike commuted 3899 miles. With that in mind, I think I’m warranted in taking a break. I’ll be back on the bike commuting routine eventually, but probably when the temps warm a bit and the snow on the ground starts to thin.