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.

Welcome Back

Exactly two weeks ago today, I officially picked up my second cold bug of the season (already). The first was a paralyzing head cold last month. This was a throat, ear canal, gross mucus flowing every direction in my head type cold. My ears were so plugged that my left eardrum would twitch every now and then from the pressure. Besides being out sick two days of work, I also stayed off the bike for awhile. I probably mistakenly rode into work on Tuesday the 4^th and then was out sick the next two days. I was at work after that but not well enough to ride in. Last week, I played it cautious and still drove in, which was probably a good call. This week though I started the week driving in. Not because I felt sick, but from just plain laziness. Once out of the routine of waking up that little bit earlier to bike in, it was hard to get motivated.

Well, I kicked myself in the pants today and got back on the horse…er…bike. My alarm went off at my normal early “bike commuting” time, I got up, went to the bathroom, thought about biking in or not, and then went back to bed. I even set my snooze timer. After maybe only two minutes lying there, I said. “No. Get up. Bike to work. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” So I got up a second time and got ready to go. (I’m sure that in the darkness my wife was rolling her eyes at my noticeable back and forth decision process.)

Today though maybe wasn’t the best day to get back to bike commuting. The high today I think was 48 degrees, but the worst was the wind. Traveling south, I didn’t notice it too bad in the morning, but there were sustained winds from the north at 20 mph, gusting to 30 mph. Biking back home after work though…yeah, that just plain sucked. I noticeably lost some fitness being off the bike for two weeks, but the rough headwind just killed me. I don’t remember a time that I have struggled in the wind so much. It was probably only a mile into my 5 ½ mi commute back home that I laughed at the depressing thought that I was already beat tired, but wasn’t even a quarter of the way.

What makes things even better is that tomorrow’s weather is more of the same. From the National Weather Service website:

“A 30 percent chance of rain before 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 50. Windy, with a north wind between 15 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph.”

Wonderful. I think I’ll get to bed early tonight.

Horses Don't Have Gears

Adding my recreational and commuting miles together, I have biked 2146 miles so far this year. I really would have liked to have done more, especially recreational miles, but I digress. The thing that does however amaze me about my total miles is that every single pedal stroke of that total has been aboard a single speed bike. My burly mountain bike is single speed, my old 1978 Schwinn shifts so poorly that I ride it as a single speed, and my new Surly Cross Check I have set up as a single speed. I even did a 50 mile ride/race that had some pretty large hills.

There’s just something about riding with only one gear. All you have on your handlebars is your brakes. Things are just more simplistic and boiled down to a more raw relationship between bike and rider. When I’m on a downhill, I either spin the pedals like crazy or stop pedaling and coast, because the gear ratio can’t keep up to the fast coasting speed. On the flats, I just keep spinning a good fast cadence. On the hills, well on the hills I just go for it. Again, I have to keep a decent cadence. If it’s a long hill, I naturally get more and more tired, and with that said, my speed and my pedaling gets slower and slower. If I pedal too slowly, I basically come to a standstill. I guess really my strategy is just to attack a hill with a good sized effort right away and just hopefully hang on until the top.

Now of course, I can’t always hold on. There are times when I just have to get off and walk. Luckily for me this has been with hills that geared cyclists have or would have to walk up too. Walking is just part of the game. I totally accept it that I might have to from time to time. It has been said of single speed riders that you do actually have three gears – sitting, standing, and walking. It’s hard sometimes for my ego to take, but I always just say “Hey it’s a single speed!” right back to it. (My ego then just settles down, but still demands that I walk faster.)

I get asked all the time why I like to ride single speed so much, and while I like to explain that it’s easier to maintain my bike (specifically the drivetrain) or that it has taught me to have a better pedaling cadence, I often think of something else. The answer that I really want to say is along the lines of “well, horses don’t have gears.” It’s not the perfect analogy because horses can’t coast downhill, but think about it. Horses can do anything from pulling an Anheuser-Busch wagon, to racing in the Triple Crown, to long distance races like in Hidalgo. They can’t shift up or down. It’s all in their legs. It’s just like running, really I guess but with coasting and usually longer distances.

Hmm, saying single speeding is just longer distance running with coasting is tempting to use as my new explanation. Still, there’s something about comparing yourself to horses. It’s like I have Clydesdale power. Yeah, I’m definitely sticking with the horses. My ego likes that better.