Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Evidently I needed extra sleep. I didn’t set an alarm for this morning, figuring I’d get up somewhere near my normal time. I think I did, but went right back to bed until around 8:30. Sinful. But it felt good. As a result I didn’t get out on the bike until around 10, so finished up the planned ride around 12:40ish, not quite 40 miles. The ride itself went well. No close calls with small children this time (went out about a month ago with a friend who ended up running over a small child who turned suddenly into his path with no space to dodge her; thankfully aside from a little cut on him, neither were seriously hurt). Only had to yell at one person (“Watch out!”) on the zoo property as he came at me head on while looking at birds off the trail rather than where he was going, and otherwise folks were behaving as I expected them to.

I find that I dislike riding the capitol crescent trail once you cross into Maryland. I’m sure the DC side would be just as bad were it as densely populated, but there’s a definite uptick in strollers, idiots wearing head phones and other obstacles. Heart rate goes up in such situations (stress much?), but so be it.

Debating a planned swim, I think I might be better off doing that tomorrow evening. The rest of the evening is set aside for le crush and a cheesy movie & dinner. Until then, it’s time to make coffee. And gather fruit.

The brick went well this morning. Met a couple new club members (but not new triathletes) afterwards as well, and encouraged them to come out to the next club happy hour. Based on this morning, I think I can aim for a sub-30 5k at the end, with an overall finish at under an hour and a half. We’ll see how that goes.

Heart rate was a little high, as I slept for shit. I vaguely remember hearing the phone ringing late last night, but didn’t fully awaken for it. Turns out my third niece decided to pop out a little earlier than expected last night, so just before midnight I was an uncle all over again. Always a fun thing to wake up to. Full head of black hair, very quiet (unlike the last one, who I’m told was quite active and hyper the first day), 5 lbs and change, healthy. Her mother is doing fine as well, as is my brother and assorted other family members, though with the midnight arrival they’re all a little tired this morning.

I thought I was going to have to rip my speed sensor apart and replace the battery (and totally void the warranty by doing it myself, but hey). Thankfully I discovered it was just out of alignment and needed to be adjusted back into position. Yay for geeky, obsessive measurements.

In other news™, while the building did come in and plug the holes in the wall today (finally!), I’m still getting the incense smell here. Yuck. I really hope they can do something about these jokers, this is beyond stupid.

Really good ride this morning. My newbies weren’t there on time (did see and pass one on my third and last loop), so I decided today was a day to practice riding in the aero position, down on the aero bars. Speedier that way, and I needed the practice time in that position. The ride went well, did 3 long loops and spent the vast majority of my time in the position with no pain in the back or neck. When you’re first learning to ride in that position those are two of the most common complaints – your neck hurts, or your lower back hurts (or both). Been doing back strengthening exercises to keep that in check, and with the neck, well, it’s a matter of spending more time in the position and learning not to keep your neck craned back to look directly forward. Not the easiest thing when one wears glasses, but it’s trainable. Now I need to do more tricep exercises, as those were the weak spot this morning and got a little sore at parts in the ride.

Decided I need to do a brick workout (BRICK = Bike, Run, ICK!) this Saturday since I’ve not done any since, oh, my last triathlon? Short one, since my race the following weekend is a short one. Just need to review that feeling of “are my legs going to be lead or gold today.”

Had a few dates lately. Taking things slowly (not hard, given my schedule), and trying not to rush into anything.

The building finally seems to be moving on the incense/pot smoke issue from the unit below mine. Per an email I got forwarded to me today they don’t have keys on file for them and have to have them there before they can go in (go fig – if you’re doing illegal things you don’t want someone just barging in). They’re scheduled now to go in and check it out next week. Maintenance has also asked if management can take some sort of action against them for indoor air pollution. In any case, I just want the stench not to make it into my unit (or, better yet, not to get made in the first place).

Having had two flats (one for each bike) last week I opted out of a swim this evening in favor of biking over to the bike shop to pick up more tubes. I had replacements for the ones which popped, but needed more to have spares around. Decided, since I’d never used one and will be racing more this year, to try out one of the CO2 cartridges to blow up the tri bike tire. Very cool toy, let me tell you. Instead of a minute or more to blow up the tire, this was done in seconds, to a perfect pressure. Good to know it works (and how it works) before needing it in a race. Also good to know the variable pressure thingey I got for it worked, too (basically there are two types of connectors for cartridges – the “pop it and all the air comes out immediately” type and a type which allows you to control the air flow – I have the latter, and it was worth the small amount of extra cash).

So, bikes all set and ready to go for the morning, for the club ride and the commute. Saved the old tube and cartridge since my bike shop can now recycle them. Better than ending up in a landfill, and easy enough to do.

I sat down and picked out the basic training plan I’m going to follow for the 1/2 iron in september. Plotted all the workouts into iCal, which means they’re on the treo now. It looks manageable, spelled out like that, and not quite as overwhelming as the plan I’d been using when I was trying to do a 1/2 last June (before the calf injury). It also helps that I’ve been doing a lot more biking, and feel more confident in that aspect of the sport now, as well as my running. I’ll tweak the plan as need be, and have already adjusted around my known schedule (the sprint race weekend after next, the charity ride and newbie races in july, etc.), but it’s looking manageable. And I might even get to have a social life in there on occasion, too.

The past couple weeks have just been entirely too much. Two flat tires last week, one on each bike. My neighbor across the hall, a sweet older gentleman, died of complications from his diabetes on Thursday. Started swimming again in anticipation of the sprint race I have in two weeks in Richmond, and for the 1/2 Ironman triathlon I’m doing in September. Went out a time or two for a birthday party, and taking a friend who needed to get out of his house, and just for the heck of it. Was up just before 4 this morning to run out to Columbia to be race support for my tri club for those folks racing the Columbia Triathlon today. Most definitely been burning the candle at both ends, in the middle, and everywhere else I could find a spot to light, or just melt off a bit.

I hope that the schedule will be calming down somewhat in the next few weeks, moreso since I’ve done much needed laundry and food shopping. Cooking anything more complex than zapping something in the microwave or popping it into the rice cooker or crock pot is going to be difficult as the season progresses, but I’ll make due. Simple meals are my friends in any case.

Despite how nuts this all sounds I’ve mostly been having a pretty good time. Work’s busy, but not overwhelmingly so. We’re in the process of hiring two new attorneys, one of whom is supposed to start learning some of my area of law so we have a backup for me. I’m prepping some training for the other attorneys in my office so they can better spot issues in my practice area and refer them appropriately. I finally reclaimed my living room from the dreaded futon, so it’s a bit more together (and roomba friendly). I have two dressers on the way for the bedroom, and a plan to pass off the last piece of my niece’s bedroom set to my parents when I see them in Richmond in two weeks. So stuff is relatively together, but definitely needs some smoothing at the edges.

Hadn’t slept well, was awake from 1 to 2 or so, so when I woke up (the second time) this morning to the clock telling me it was five after 6, I was starting the day off with a bit of a mood. I was supposed to be at Hains Point for a ride in 25 minutes, and it takes me not quite ten to get there. Yikes!

I threw on bike clothes, sucked down as much water as I could, checked the temperature (52F), threw on arm warmers, and was still not out the door until almost 6:30.

Rode over to the Point, regretting that I’d not thrown on a light jacket or vest as well (legs and arms were fine, torso a bit chilly). 6:36, they were well gone, so started to go around the opposite direction to find ’em.

Found the fast people, saw no slow folks (I’m not able to keep up with the faster riders. Yet.), but turned around and started going in the correct direction. Turned the corner to do a small loop, but as I got back toward the turn off I was going against the wind finally and it was just too much. I turned the corner and headed back home. Total time out, about 21 minutes, far short of the usual hour and a quarter.

Got in, stripped off the bike clothes, threw myself in the shower and hopped out into a chilly apartment. Threw on a robe, checked the clock, saw that I had time, and made a pot of coffee to sip there at home before work. Checked up on some club business, got that done, enjoyed the coffee thoroughly and eventually got ready to get to work.

Some days exercise just doesn’t work, and that’s perfectly fine. The coffee was good, and I’ll get in a better ride when more prepared and rested on Sunday.

To date I have avoided doing charity sporting events, but this year I have committed to ride in the 2007 TEAM Food & Friends cycling weekend, July 12-15th.

Food & Friends is a nonprofit organization that prepares, packages and delivers more than 3,000 meals a day, free of charge, to clients throughout the DC metropolitan area. One of the main reasons I signed up for this was that while Food & Friends began as a service to deliver meals to people with HIV/AIDS, and that’s still a central part of their mission, over the years they’ve been able to expand that service to include men, women and children who face a variety of illnesses such as breast and prostate cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses. That mission is critical to support providing three meals a day to more than 1,300 people, six days a week.

Please support my efforts to raise $1900 by making a tax-deductible donation today. Every penny raised goes directly to help the clients of Food & Friends.

If you can help in any amount, I’d be very grateful, and I know that the clients which Food & Friends serves will be as well. If you do donate, please let me know, since I won’t necessarily know the real names of folks who read this. Thank you.

I got hit by a bird when we first started up. Two birds were either fighting or fucking, but in any case they came swooping down in the road, not looking where they were going, and one of them smacked me. Never before have I felt like Fabio. No blood, no scratch, thankfully.

You can tell it’s spring pollen season when you look down and your tire is a lovely shade of light yellow. Ick.

Despite the bird incident it was a good ride. Overcast, cool, mid-60s. The rain that looked threatening never happened, so it was smooth sailing. Got dropped, as I expected, but no worries there, I just got in a good ride, keeping the cadence up and attempting to keep the heart rate at a decent level. Was a tad high, but it’ll get better as the season progresses.

I guess ye olde bodye decided this morning was for sleeping in rather than getting up and biking, as I slept through my alarm for about an hour. Whoops.

Recovery from the race has otherwise gone okay. The blister was gone yesterday, and the residual soreness in my right calf has tapered down to nothing this morning. Will do a short run tomorrow morning to stretch out the legs, then will be back to business for the half weekend after next.

Work was odd yesterday, there were only four of us in the main suite and one of those one never sees because she has an outside entrance to her office. The acting boss was sick as the proverbial dog and losing her voice, poor woman. I wonder what she’s going to sound like this morning.

Speaking of biking, it looks like Thursday’s ride, if it happens at all, will be on the trainer – going to be below freezing for the low. Brr! I realize it’s April in DC and these things happen, but man, I just want warmer weather to be here for good. Not blazing hot weather, but warmer.