My Body Aches - It's Been A Good Week

It's been about a week since I posted and today was a rest day so I have no excuse not to enter a new post.

Yesterday's run was a killer. Well, just the first half. It was all hills, well really just too big ones. I didn't know that when I mapped out the course online, I was including the two biggest hills in Decorah. The run began with a nice steep "warm up" up President's hill. It did occur to me the instant after I completed mapping the course that I'd be running up the hill. However, I kept it in because I remembered it was hard, but that I could do it. Yeah, I forgot just how long and steep it was. I definitely was waaay more than "warmed up" barely just one mile into a 7 mile run. About a mile or so later I got to the other big hill of the day - the Quarry hill. This time however I was at the top and not at the bottom. A downhill is usually easier than an uphill but not when its a loose gravel road - because of the dump truck from the quarry - super twisty, and easily over a mile long. It was a bit nuts. Eventually I did get back down to the flatland and back into Decorah where I finished off the run on the river trail and around by the campgrounds. All in all, it wasn't a bad run - especially when the hills were over. I felt great with 3 miles to go and under, and finished with a final time 61.19 - 8.46 min per mile.

I did finally get a training plan together for the Nordic Fest run. I basically just entered my stats into a program on runnersworld.com and boom - a training plan. It only has me running 4 days a week and the 'easy run' pace is waay slow so I'm changing things a bit, making things harder, so that can only be a good thing right? If I don't get a good race time I'll at least have a good base to start my marathon training. Which reminds me I really need to register for that...

Besides just a training plan, I've also enforced a stricter diet upon myself. I've cut out desserts of all kinds. My sweets now consist of fruit and yogurt. I've also cut out fried foods, breaded foods, and oily/fatty meats. Don't worry however, I'm not cutting out beer - although I haven't been drinking as much lately. I'll still have plenty of reviews though!

This last week I decided that after I get done with this next marathon, I'm going to train for triathlons. However, I can't swim worth a damn, but I decided I'd take a step to change that. I got myself a pair of goggles (after a couple tries) and then went to the public pool during lap swim. To make a the story short I learned that just because you can run a marathon and bike a century, that doesn't automatically make you a decent swimmer. Hell, it doesn't even mean that you can swim across a 25 yard pool. I'm sure I made a made one hell of a sight only swimming halfway acroos the pool and standing up gasping for air because I can't get my breathing right. Since I should be getting a bike back soon, I think I'm just going to wait until the school's pool reopens when school starts to start swim training again, basically so I don't have to pay $3 everytime I swim - or do whatever you call the the thing that I did in the water.

Speaking about the bike - I hoped to get it back this last weekend, but when I stopped in the shop it wasn't quite done. The new frame has a wider seat tube so the front derailleur clamp that I had was too small, so the shop called Masi to send the right size. So more waiting... However there is some really great news. The new frame is not only a frame model from this current year but its also the next model up. This frame - a Gran Criterium instead of my old Gran Corsa - has carbon seatstays like the other frame but it also has carbon chainstays too, not to mention a larger, and thus stiffer, bottom bracket area. Oh, and the best thing - its white! And its somehow even a better looking white too! So there's some good news mixed with some bad, but I should get a bike back soon.

One last thing. In many conversations I've had over the last week, I've been asked what my motivation or reason for cycling, running, swimming, etc.; or why it is I'm such a crazy endurance freak. Basically I've come up with this: You're not really living unless you find what limits you can take your body and then how far you can stretch them. In a nutshell, the day is not complete unless I test my body - unless I run, bike, whatever.

Well thats all for now. It's time for bed, plus I've just finished the beer I was drinking while writing this. Until next time...

Inside The Bottle - my beer reviews explained

Before I actually do any of my beer reviews, I better do some explaining of how I'm going about it.

First of all, to be consistent, all of the beers that are being reviewed - and being drunk - are from the bottle. True, beers out of the bottle have a much different taste than ones on tap, however I want to be consistent in all the beers I review - and again drink. As a college student as well, I drink waaay more beer out of the bottle anyway. Plus it's fun to make magnets out of all the different beer bottle caps (We'll see some of those in later blogs I'm sure). I'm also not reviewing tap beers because I would look pretty rediculous sitting at a bar writing down notes about the beer I'm drinking.

I should also mention that I'm being lazy and just drinking the beer straight from the bottle and not pouring into a proper ale, lager, stout, whatever glass. So because of that I'm focusing just on the mouth feel, taste, and complexity of beers - and leaving out the color. Who really cares about the color anyway?

Oh, and one last final point. No American crap beers!!! So don't expect any Miller, Budweiser, Coors, etc. to make their way into this blog. The most mainstream American beers I'll be covering is some Sam Adams brews - and I have mixed feelings on covering some of those already. You can expect many micro-brews as well as many foreign beers.

Hopefully, I've sparked some curiosity and interest in a few of you, so I should have a review or two posted soon.

- happy biking, happy running, happy drinking, happy life.

UPDATE 10-02-06 ~ An executive decision has been made by the higher-ups (me) that the beer reviewing will no longer be a part of this blog. As readers may have noticed, this blog has been going for almost 4 months and still no reviews. I've been drinking less of the foamy beverage since I've been running and biking more. Plus, the higher ups (again, me) felt that it detracted from the most important subject of the blog, the biking and running. There may be a future blog however for just beer reviews. We'll see...

Finally...

After much deliberation I got a name for my blog and here I am! Look for lots of updates this summer because life is pretty dull working 40 hours a week and living the summer on campus.

I just got back from an easy run tonight, I've been pretty zapped from my recent 14-day long work streak. Finally that ends tomorrow and I'll have Sunday off, so a long run is in store for then. Anyway, tonight I just kept it easy and did a 1/2 mile warm-up, a timed mile on the track, and then a 1/2 mile cool-down. I normally would have done more, but I wanted to time a 'race pace' mile on the track so I could figure out a good training schedule for the Nordic Fest 15K at the end of July. My mile wasn't horrible, 6.37, but I think I could've gone way faster if I was actually running against someone. To set up my schedule I think I'm going to use a 6.30 pace, maybe being more accurate to 'race pace.'

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently without my bike and have been for a little over a month now. I got a crack in the frame on one of the chainstays. So the frame got sent back to the company for replacement. I did get a confirmation this week from my bike shop that the frame is in fact going to be replaced, and the 'limited' in 'lifetime limited warranty' isn't going to bite me in the ass. However, its going to be replaced with the a model from the current year, which is blue and not my beloved white. I guess I should just be thankful that I'm getting it replaced.

Sniff...sniff...I'll miss you white frame! :(

More later!