Having it All

Track/running season for the boys

2011-06-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

This year has been a lot of fun in watching the boys run. Let's rewind back to 2010.

Last year, Brady ran with a track team over the summer and he loved it. Alex wasn't that interested in running and couldn't make it through 100m without stopping and whining for mom to be next to him. We just figured track wasn't Alex's thing. But Brady sure loved it.

Now this year, we find out that his former track team dropped track from their organization to focus more on their football program. The only alternative teams were so crazy expensive. So we decided that I would just coach Brady this year and he'd run as an unattached/independent runner. We've been practicing on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights and he's been able to run with one of his good buddies to make practice more fun. And what's been even better is that Alex is now loving track! He runs all the workouts by himself and is doing really great.

One thing that's popped up this year is a series of kids 1K races on Thursday nights (the 1K runs are right before the 5K runs for the racers). We thought these would be more fun that running around the track on Thursday nights, so we let the boys run in them if they wanted.

The first one the boys ran in was on May 26th. It was funny because the race director doesn't want the kids to overheat (been in the 90s in the evenings lately), so he was telling them it's okay to slow down if you get tired. So then he posed the question to the whole group of kids, "So what do you do if you start to feel tired?" And Brady yelled out--and no other kids made any noises, so it stood out very clear--"You run harder!" We all got a little chuckle out of that; he's already got the mindset of a runner. Alex did really well for his first ever run-with-no-walking 1K and ran a time of 6:41. Brady did really well and ran a 5:19, which was his fastest time so far.

The second run was on June 2nd. I should preface this one with a little story. Brady and I watch a lot of cycling together, and he always asks questions about why they make the faces they do and how they go so fast. Melanie and I tell him it's because that really fast athletes don't slow down or quit when they get tired or hurt, instead, they just go as hard as they can and never quit. Now, of course, this is easier said than done. Brady's known this for a long time, but in practice and in races, he has a tendency to give up once he reaches a certain point of discomfort. And I have never blamed him...he's only 6! But the week leading up to the second 1K, he had a major change in practice that week. I ran him really hard on Tuesday of that week and it was the first time I ever saw him not slow down when he got tired. He really pushed hard, so hard that he felt like crap by the time he'd finish each run in practice. I know that sounds awful, but that is a totally normal part of track. I don't push misery on him at this age, but it was neat to see him doing that because he wanted to go faster. So that's the set-up...after a really great practice on Tuesday where I ran him hard and he pushed himself, we were ready to race on Thursday.

Alex didn't get to run in this second 1K because he had a bad day at school, so it was just Brady. In the first 1K on May 26, I ran alongside Brady. For this one, he asked if he could run it all on his own. I mostly like to run with him to keep him from going out too fast, but we decided to let him learn how to pace on his own by running this one solo. He really paced well for the first half, staying toward the middle of the pack. At the turnaround, he picked up the pace and was passing a lot of kids who were tiring out. He ran very smart. At the end, he was trying to catch an older kid and really kicked in a hard sprint for the last 100 meters or so. All the grown-ups were cheering like crazy and seemed to think it was really neat that kids that age were dueling out to the finish. The older kid ended up beating Brady out, but he really gave it his best effort. I knew Brady had made a breakthrough because I've never seen him really have that desire to chase somebody down like that. When he crossed the line, he had a new best time of 5:01!!! I couldn't believe it. That's a really good time for a 6 year old.

Brady coming down the home stretch. He really was working hard to try and catch the boy in front of him.

The final sprint!

I ran up to the finish line and one of our friends told us that he was crying. Melanie and I were trying to find out what was wrong but he wasn't talking. I didn't know if he was seriously hurt or upset that he didn't outsprint the kid or what. Eventually, when he could catch his breath a little better, he started talking to me. He said that he was crying because everything just hurt so bad...his legs, his lungs, everything. I told him he did really well and that the reason he hurt so much was because he worked so hard and ran so well. I asked him if he wishes he wouldn't have run so hard and he kind of smiled and said "no, I'm glad I did." I asked him if he had fun running that hard and he stopped crying, smiled, and said, "yes." So although it hurt, I think he really liked going fast like that. I was so proud of him for running so hard and for working so hard in practice. I know it's hard for non-lifelong runners to understand, but running hard and hurting is actually a fun aspect of track in its own sick, little, twisted way. I understood exactly what he was feeling at the moment.

After the race when he was crying. He was a little embarrassed so we walked over away from everyone.

Got him to stop crying when I asked him if he had fun. A little smile started to creep in.

He settled back down and while he still hurt and was sore, the mental shock of it had worn off. He posed for some photos and we watched the start of the grown-ups' 5K. I'll be curious to see how his track interests change over time. He has the option to opt out and not run at any time, but he seems to have that sick runner's mentality of enjoying running hard! I'm looking forward to watching him the remainder of the season.

Posing after the race with his medal. He likes to wear his Usain Bolt shirt to help him go fast. He's so cute.

What goes around comes around

2011-03-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Many people who know me know one of my true loves in life is to eat food. For as long as I can remember, I've always eaten A LOT. (Funny side note: check out this blog for an amusing outlook on the incorrect spelling of "alot") Anyway, back to the story... Sometimes as a kid my requests were outlandish and denied. When we'd have donuts on a Sunday morning, I'd want a dozen glazed for myself. I'd want a dozen tacos when we went to Taco Bell. But more often than not, parents caved and I ate a lot of food growing up. I'd normally eat a large pizza by myself when we ordered, I would eat two Subway footlongs on my own. I even remember one time my mom and step dad grilled 6 filets and I got to eat 4 of them (plus 2 baked potatoes)!! My record for most number of slices of pizza eaten in one setting is 18. Ridiculous, I know.

You might be thinking, "Wow, Kris, you were quite the slobby fat ass growing up. No wonder there is a child obesity problem in this country. You're the posterchild for it." Normally, I'd say that's a logical thought, but the reality was that I was eating a good 4000-5000 calories per day, and in high school I was 5'9" and 135 lbs at my heaviest. I was an eating machine. I don't eat like that anymore (although I wish I could), but even as an adult I can still eat a helluva lot when I want to. One time, while eating lunch with some friends, I ordered a gigantic half sausage half hamburger smothered in chili with a side order of chili fries. Keep in mind the plate of chili fries was about the same size as a platter at a Mexican restaraunt. The waitress said, "If you can actually eat all that, you can have it for free." My friends replied, "Oh man, you have no idea how much he can eat." So I ate it all, and true to her word, I got it for free. I was so full that I didn't eat again for another 24 hours, but I ate it nonetheless. The point is that I eat a lot and I cost my parents a lot of money growing up.

Fast forward now to parenthood. I have two boys who on occasion (thankfully not every meal), will eat extremely large quantities of food. If they are doing this now at ages 6 and 3, I cringe at how much they are going to cost us in food growing up. As Alex, who is still only 3 years old, put down 4 slices of pizza last night, I started to reflect on some of the amazing feats they've accomplished so far in their young eating careers. Here are some highlights that I can remember--although there are so many more that I can't remember--for most food eaten per sitting:

Brady

7 chicken nuggets (age 3)
4 hot dogs (ages 4 and 5)
entire mini pizza (ages 3 and up)
4 waffles; multiple times he's done this (age 6)
3 hot dogs, helping of veggies, cup of yogurt, cup of pudding (ages 4 and up)
3 slices of pizza, an entire large cucumber, and a popsicle (age 6)

Alex

half a Red Baron-sized pizza (age 3)
half a hamburger, 1 hot dog, cup of peaches, side of green beans (age 1)
3 waffles and 1 pancake (age 3)
4 pancakes (age 3)
4 hot dogs (age 2)
7 chicken nuggets (age 2)

There are other times where they've eaten a normal size main portion, but we gave them as much fruit and veggies as they were willing to eat. Oh, and that child obesity issue: both boys are skinny as a rail.

Well, it looks like I'm now being paid back two-fold for all the food I ate and the money it cost to feed me. Let's hope I can afford to send them to college after paying for all their food.

Soccer season has kicked off

2011-03-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the first game of the spring soccer season for Brady and Alex. It was a great weekend and you can find pics here:

Brady's game
Alex's game

Last year, Alex seemed very uninterested. He preferred to goof with friends, run around aimlessly, and play with the ground more so than actually trying to play soccer. Of course, he's only three, but at the same time we wanted to be sure that we weren't forcing him to play something he didn't want to play. We asked him if he wanted to play this year, and told him he didn't have to if he didn't want to, but he wanted to. In his first game this season, I can say the difference is night and day! He played really hard, tried to dribble and score goals, didn't goof around, and it was obvious he was having fun! Eureka! He almost scored a goal or two, but the shots weren't quite on net. He did put one in the goal for the other team, but that's part of the learning process. I'm just happy he's trying hard and having fun.

Brady was clearly a little rusty in his game. But it slowly started to come back to him in the second half. One thing is for sure, no kid will ever out-hustle him. He was the only kid on either team to play for the entire 40 minute game! He was always getting to the ball first and running back to help out on defense. I love it when he plays that hard. And the one skill I've been harping on him to start doing--using his left foot--finally came out on Saturday when he dribbled a couple of times with his left. It's still not natural for him, but he's getting used to the idea. He did score a goal in his team's 4-0 win. I suspect he'll be racking up a lot more goals this year once he shakes the rust off. And course, he had a blast doing it! That kid just love running and playing sports.

It was a great weekend and I was very proud of both of them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone. I can say that I'm very happy. I've been mulling this over for a couple of weeks and decided to post something on happiness. Let's go back to the origin of my blog title, "Having it All."

There are three things in life that truly make me happy: my family, my job, and triathlon. I'm one of the rare lucky people that really enjoys their job. I'm selfish in that if only one or two of those things are going well, then I don't feel as happy as I should be. All three need to be going well for me to really feel great. Because time is limited, I am often sacrificing one, two, or sometimes even all three of those things.

More often than not, it's triathlon that gets cut out of the equation when things get busy. In 2008, my work hours went up quite a bit, and around April 2009, they increased drastically. I was putting in 60-65 hours per week, sometimes even up to 75 hrs/week a couple of times. I quickly cut out triathlon, and unfortunately, family time also was sacrificed. I was really happy with my job productivity, but I was a very unhappy person overall.

In 2010, I made a promise to cut back on work because the sacrificing family time was unacceptable anymore. I did cut back to 50-55 hrs/week and family life was a lot more fun (because there was more of it!). That was great, but it's still only 2/3rds of what I really want out of life.

Now, in 2011, something hit me. Here are some data on my cycling miles by year, a surrogate for my 'triathlon' aspect of life happiness:

Yes, my cycling miles have plummted from over 3,000 per year to a mere 106 miles in 2010. I had carved out more time for family in 2010, but I felt too selfish to carve out more time for my personal happiness (i.e., triathlon). I realized this year that I need to be more selfish. So I've started taking some more time for myself and restricting my work to only 40-45 hrs/week. Holy cow! I can't believe how much free time someone has when they work 40 hrs/week!! I feel great. I'm sticking to a very modest training schedule: 3 runs per week, 1-2 bike rides per week. Nothing too fancy since I'm not preparing to race anytime soon, just enjoying the time being active. And I still have lots of time for family at home and with the kids' sports. Melanie has time to get in her workouts, too. And while my work hours have reduced, I try to be extremely efficient with the limited hours I have and still be productive. I'm pretty happy with how well I'm getting more done with less hours with work.

I'm as happy as I've been in years. So far so good, but I hope you find a similar level of happiness in your lives!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY EVERYONE!

Alternate titles: Why do you run? or Why do you do triathlons?

2011-03-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have 3 blog posts to update today. I was going to space them out, but as I let them sit, the ideas soon leave my head and I never get around to it. So let's just jump in with the first one.

Before I get into the real 'meat' of the post, I first wanted to share a great video on run mechanics. This is a really great illustration of some key attributes of running efficiently from Jesse Kropelnicki.

Now to the heart of the post: the title. The answer to these questions in this title are different for everyone. For me, I've just loved running since I was a little kid. I can't explain why, I just love it. For triathlon, it's for personal reasons. I'll keep those personal, although a few close people know why. For Melanie, she now loves running after hating it her whole life. Her motivation to start running was to lose weight. Through that process, she has really discovered what makes running so wonderful, and she did so independently of me (i.e., I didn't influence her to think that). She now tells me that she totally gets why I've always loved it so much. She loves her long runs on the weekends. For Brady, he's much like me. He just loves it. Alex has a few years to develop whether he likes it or not, so time will tell. The point is that everyone has different motivations.

If you are a runner or a triathlete, you also know it's sometimes very hard to keep at it and it's extremely easy to forget why you love it so. This post is for all my runner/triathlete friends to remind themselves why they truly love what they do. All your answers are different. But they are all correct.

If you're having a hard time getting motivated and out the door, have a look at these videos to remind you of your answers.

(I can never make it past the part where Derek Redmond's dad comes out of the stands to help him finish in the 1992 Olympics without getting choked up.)

And for triathlon:

Long time, no blog!

2011-03-01T06:21:00.001-08:00

Well, let's see... Last posted an entry in August 2010 followed by one in March 2011. That sounds about standard. So I guess it's time for my frequent "I'm going to do better at posting a blog entry" declaration. Perhaps I'll stick with it this time, perhaps not? I guess I'll go for a quick recap of the last 8 months.

Alex started playing soccer. He's a typical 3 year old, more interested in running around and chasing than anything else. He seems disinterested, but he says he likes it and wants to keep playing, so he'll start back up here in a few weeks. Brady had another really good soccer season and is really getting into the sport. He's got a lot of hustle, that's for sure!

After soccer ended, Brady started his first season of football. He was nervous, but he picked it up very quickly. He used his best skill set: running and speed. He had several long runs and most of them went for long touchdowns. He's quite good at cutting to hit gaps and then exploding through them. He's very good on offense, but his defense needs a little work. :)

Melanie did some more triathlons and had fun. Like me, she gets into a good rhythm with working out, then it all gets derailed as she gets busy with work. Not to mention we're also quite busy with the boys' sports, too. Brady did his triathlon in October, too. He did awesome and went so much faster than he did last year. He's swimming sans life vest now, and it won't be long until he loses the training wheels on the bike. He loves that fact he can go faster without them!

Probably the most exciting news comes from the job front. Once again, it's that time of year when I am applying for assistant professor faculty positions. I had two offers this year from two schools that I really liked, and they were in really great areas to raise our family. I am excited to say that I accepted an offer from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA. Melanie, Brady, Alex, and I will be moving there in August. We're going to miss Ft. Worth and Texas quite a bit, but we're so excited to start this new chapter in our lives. From a selfish perspective, I'm so excited to start my new job. The faculty and adminstration have been great, all the students I've met have been great, and it's in such a nice area. I get to teach some really exciting classes and local research opportunities with lizards are abundant. I'm really looking forward to it. Now, if I can just get someone to buy my house before we move...

Other than that, I've just been doing some winter field work with one of our grad students. It's been a lot of fun, but I feel very behind in office work. Time to get crackin' on that.

Once again, I'm pledging to be more frequent with pretty meaningless updates, so stay tuned friends and family.

Who says I'm afraid of heights?

2010-08-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

Who says I'm afraid of heights? I DO!!

No doubt about it, I'm scared to death of high places. I don't even like getting up on top of a 6-foot ladder. Seriously. Anyone who knows me well knows just how much I hate heights. I even get a queasy feeling in my stomach when I see someone near a ledge. I don't even like leaning on a safe, secure railing from a high place. Sure, I've gone up some pretty high mountains with steep ledges, but that took a lot of working up to and it was at least a little more safe feeling - I could go backwards and be on a huge chunk of mountain away from a fall.

So imagine my feelings when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity came along to climb a nearly 300-foot tall wind turbine. One the one hand, NO FREAKIN' WAY. On the other, not many people get to do this and I'll probably never have another chance. So I figured I'd take the opportunity.

After being trained on what to do and how to climb it, the last part of certification was the actual climb. The climb itself wasn't too bad...you climb up inside the tower. I was surprised at how hot it is in there. There are platforms you stop and regroup that cuts the entire climb into approximately thirds. Only one person is allowed on the ladder at a time, so each one goes to the next platform, gets off, then the next, and so on until we all regroup. There were 6 of us that day. You're attached to a cable the whole time and you climb the ladder so that your back is right up against the wall. These two things made it a lot easier to not get scared just so long as I didn't look down.

Once up on top, in the little box on the tower called the nacelle, the scary part was over for me. The nacelle is large (maybe 8-9 feet tall) and there's no real view out the sides. The tower sways from the wind and inside the nacelle, you feel like you're in the hull of a ship at sea. It wasn't bad.

I was also surprised that poking my head out of the top for the first time wasn't that bad either. It helped because you can only see out and up when poking your head out, not down.

When it was my turn to go out on top of the nacelle, I was nervous. But decided to not think about it and just do it. You are double-latched with saftey lanyards the whole time, so I tried to just think about it logically that even if I fell, I wasn't going anywhere. It also helped that the wind techs take safety very seriously and go through extra precautions...you have to be completely careless and not follow the protocol in order to screw something up bad enough to have an accident.

The view from the top was amazing.

I actually walked to the edge and peered over the side at the 300-foot-drop. This is what cars look like from up that high.

The climb down was the least fun part to me. Instead of doing it in sections, you just go down the ladder all the way to the bottom. To make sure you aren't sneaking up on the person below you, you do have to look down from time to time. This was unnerving for me as I was forced to see how high up I actually was.

It was a very cool experience and I'm really appreciative of having this opportunity. The facility staff and wind techs were great, especially easing my fears as they knew I was petrified of heights. It was definitely an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life!

Full photo set found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10947447@N08/sets/72157624536204783/with/4863388027/

Brady can swim!

2010-08-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

Only a quick update...

Just last week, Brady was finally able to at least doggie paddle around. Now he's working on getting his face down while he swims and he's progressing along quite nicely. Still not good enough that he doesn't need us watching him 100%, so we still do that. But he and Alex are starting swim lessons back up this Sat (this will be Alex's first organized swim lesson) and hopefully Brady will be self-sufficient by the end.

Speaking of sports, craziness is about to ensue this fall. Brady and Alex will both be playing soccer for the first time. Brady will also be playing flag football when the soccer season ends, so should be a busy fall.

Melanie and I are still trying to get back into shape so we can do another tri together this fall...she's been more successful at sticking with it than I have.

I'm off to meet Brady's kindergarten teacher, but will post some updates soon about my climb up to the top of a nearly 300 foot wind turbine! And pics for proof!

An end to this year's Tour de France

2010-07-25T11:46:00.001-07:00

Just had a sweet little moment between Brady and I, and it prompted me to jot it down in blog form so that I can remember it vividly at a later date. You see, Brady has become addicted to this year's Tour de France. He's watched nearly every stage, and I shouldn't admit this, but I've even let him stay up until 11 pm to watch some of the longer mountain stages! He asks a ton of questions every stage, but he probably knows more about the TdF than most Americans and maybe even more than the casual cyclist. He gets it.

He understands the yellow, green, polka dot, and white jerseys. He understands the rainbow jersey of the world champion, the difference between a sprint road stage, a mountain stage, and a time trial. He understands the country jerseys of the national champions. He knows all the teams, all the major riders, who the best climbers are, who the best sprinters are, who the best time trialists are, and what it means to be a "GC contender." He understands strategies for sprinters on the lead out, how to reel in the breakaway, why the riders in the breakaway work together and draft to stay away from the peloton, why they attack on mountain stages, and also about sportsmanship and when not to attack (I'll not touch that debate here!). He even refers to the yellow jersey in it's proper French name, the "maillot jaune." (Pronounced ‘MY-OH jzone’ for you non-francophiles.) He's even asked me, "Which team is Jerome Pineau on?" I said "Quickstep." And he replied, "Oh, so he's teammates with Sylvain Chavenal then." The point is that it's really impressive to know all this for a 5-year-old, and it should emphasize just how immersed he's become in this year's Tour.

What has made this Tour so special is that we've watched all the stages together, often at night, and often with him resting his head on my arm on the couch. It's not just an interest in cycling, but a time for us to be together and share in something. That's why today, the last stage in the 2010 Tour de France, was a little emotional. At the end of the broadcast, they did a 5-10 min. or so highlight montage set to music (Kings and Queens by 30 Seconds to Mars if you are curious). He was silent the entire time and I even thought he may have dozed off. When it was over and we turned it off, I asked him if he was still awake. He said yes. I asked what was wrong. He said, "I just feel like I'm going to cry." I said, "I know, it's sad when it comes to an end, but there will be another Tour next year and we'll watch it again." I said come on, let's go get lunch. As I walked out of the room, Alex (who isn't that interested in the Tour but watches from time to time) was following me, but Brady wasn't there. I walked back into the room to get him and there he was in a silent cry--the type of cry where he doesn't make noise but is the beginning to a total breakdown. He was bawling and I was having a hard time not getting choked up while I was trying to comfort him. I didn't want it to end, either.

But there is a happy ending. He started to feel better and we all ate some lunch together, and he went on and on about how someday he wants to be the national champion so that he can wear the USA jersey in the Tour de France when he gets older. And that he and Alex can be on the same team together just like the Schleck brothers (although Alex's favorite riders are Sammy Sanchez and Alessandro Petacchi). It was cute. But in reality, the odds of him being a professional athlete of that caliber are infinitesimal, but boy what a cool story this would make if he ever did. Of course he's also 5, and next year he may have no interest in cycling. Who knows? But for now, we're looking forward to our yearly Tour watch together in 2011.

UPDATE:

When I woke Brady up from nap yesterday, I asked if he had a good nap. Thinking that maybe his feelings had calmed a bit after not thinking about it for a while, his reply: "Yeah. [Long pause] But I wish the Tour wasn't over." I feel bad for the little guy.

Oh, and one other thing I forgot to share when I first wrote yesterday...when I was making lunch for Brady and Alex after the Tour finished, they were sitting at the table waiting for me to finish. Some movement caught my eye and I looked over there and saw Brady mimicking Andy Schleck's celebratory fist pump after he won Stage 8 (see video below). I watched him for a few seconds and then he noticed me and sheepishly stopped as if embarrassed. I asked what he was doing and he said nothing. I asked if he was pretending to be Andy Schleck winning a stage and he smiled and shyly said "Yeah" with a great big grin. He's just too funny.

And Alex wanted to wear an orange tee shirt this morning to school to be like Sammy Sanchez (he wears an orange jersey)...these kids are crazier than I am. :)

Brady track update

2010-07-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

I last reported that Brady was excited to run his practice mile last weekend and that I would post an update. Oh, how things change. He thought we were going to run the mile at a race with his teammates and friends and when I explained to him that he couldn't do it in a race until he does it in a practice, he was disappointed. He didn't want to run by himself and decided he didn't want to try to run the mile. I explained to him that you can't do the fun stuff (race) without first putting in the work (practicing it). He still kind of wants to run it, and says he'll try it in practice on his own first, but the ball is in his court. It's up to him now.

On a non-track-related note, Brady wanted to go for a bike ride on Monday (Melanie and I had the day off), so we took him out. He rode 7 miles and up some pretty big hills. I think he did pretty good but it did take an excruciatingly long time: 1 hour and 45 minutes. But he had fun so Melanie and I stuck it out. I was pulling Alex in the trailer and although he was getting a bit bored going so slow, he was a good trooper as well. The main thing is that Alex said he had fun and Brady loved it, too. So mom and dad just grinned and bear it.

On a related note, last night's track practice was something else. I should preface this by explaining how the track team practices and is divided. The team has kids ranging from 4 to about 14. They are divided into the 'little ones' (8 and under) and the 'big kids' (8+ and a few of the really fast 7 year olds). They warm up together as one group, but then run their practice within their age division. The coaches usually do not challenge the little ones much like they do the big kids so that there is no pressure and it's kept fun. I do like this because it keeps it fun, but there are a few of the little ones that actually want to be challenged. Brady is one of them. If he isn't pushed, he just sort of jogs. If you challenge him, he really goes all out and he actually has more fun.

So last night, none of the coaches were able to make it so one of the other dad's who has some coaching background coached the practice. Normally in practice, Brady runs his 200m repeats around 51 to 55 seconds each, and his fastest 200m time so far is in a race at 49 seconds. For the first couple of repeats, Brady didn't try real hard so the coach called him out and said he had to start hitting 45 seconds for his repeats. I wasn't there (had to work late but was on my way) but I got a call from Melanie.

Melanie: "What times does Brady usually run his 200s in?"
Me: "If he tries hard, about 51-53 seconds but if he's slacking he'll run around 55 seconds. Why, what's he running them in now?"
Melanie: "Uh, he's running them in 45 seconds."
Me: "What? No he isn't. Are you sure you're timing him right?"
Melanie: "Yes, and the coach is timing him too. He started giving Brady a target time to hit and he's actually running faster than some of the bigger kids who normally beat him."
Me: "I'm hurrying, I'll be right there. I have to see this."

So I finally get there and I get my stopwatch ready to time him. The little ones come up to do their run and the coach calls out, "Brady, you've got a time of 45 seconds to hit. On your marks, get set, go." I have my watch going and I have never seen him try with this kind of effort before! Sure enough, 45 seconds. My jaw nearly hit the grass. By this time a 2nd coach had showed up and when they saw my reaction, they looked over at me smiling and pointed to the watch shaking their head yes. I couldn't believe it. He was out-running kids he's never come close to beating before in practice. Wow. Needless to say, I was on cloud 9. Brady was pretty excited and after practice, I don't think he breathed for about 2 minutes while he talked and talked about it replaying it all for me. He was so proud of himself for running so hard and so was I.

We took him to Taco Bell for dinner as a treat, which is he and Alex's favorite place to eat. After dinner I watched the day's stage in the Tour de France and Brady wanted to join me. I was explaining to him the good riders, what strategies they were using, the rivalries, etc. He really got into it and said, "This is the greatest show ever! It's even better than cartoons." I know he didn't truly mean it, but that combined with his awesome performance at track practice, and he played me like a fiddle last night. I would have let him eat candy in bed if he would have asked. We let him stay up 2 hours past his bedtime to watch the Tour. :)

I'm one proud papa.

Brady is now a bonafide track addict!

2010-06-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

I spent most of June traveling around TX, mostly in the Trans-Pecos region north of Big Bend, for a horned lizard project I'm helping out on. So I haven't been able to update much. I'm still catching up on missed work, house stuff, organizing pictures (I take A LOT with my new camera!), etc. Because of this, I haven't been able to write in the month of June. As I catch up, expect an update on our family camping trip to S. Llano River in April sometime in the next month. But the main reason I'm blogging today is to let friends and family know about Brady and his new-found love of track!!

We found out through one of Brady's former teachers that there are organized track teams for kids as young as 5. We asked Brady if he wanted to try it and his first response was, "What is track?" When we said it's running, his response was an excited "YES!!" I explained to him that it's not a fun playing time with friends or anything, it's just running around an oval over and over and over. And that it would hurt, he'd be tired, and he'd do nothing but run. "Still want to do it?" Brady: "Yes!" Okay, let's sign him up.

No doubt about it, he loves it. He doesn't always give his best effort at every practice, but he's 5 and that's just the attention span he has right now. And if I had to compare it to soccer or baseball, I'd say he takes track much more seriously with a lot less goofing around. In the last 5 weeks or so he's ran, I've seen a big change in his conditioning and running form. His teammates and the other parents really seem to like him and he's earned the nickname, "B." One of the coaches is really impressed with how fast he is for only a 5 year old with minimal training: "Man, if he could have joined us back in March, I'd love to see where he'd be right now." (Note: track season started in March but we didn't find out about it until May.) It's been a huge time commitment with practices every Mon, Tue, and Thur and long, all-day track meets on Saturdays. At track meets, the field events and the 2 mile run start early, about 8 a.m., but the other races start at about 10 or 11 a.m. and go until 3-5 p.m. Our entire Saturdays pretty much revolve around the track meet. But as much as he loves it, and we really like it too, it's well worth it.

I can't believe how big youth track is here in Texas!! At his first track meet (see paragraph below), there were 800 kids and 26 teams at the event. It was massive. The way these meets work is that there are different age groups: Pee-Wee is 8 and under, then there is 10 and under, 12 and under, 14 and under, 16 and under, and finally 18 and under. By far the majority are 12 and under as older than this and they are usually running with a particular school. As a 5-year-old, Brady is obviously in the 8 and under group. But even within this age group, the number of kids is so large that they break them down into heats based on sub-categories of age. They'll have all the 4 and small 5 year olds together, the 5 and 6 year olds together, and then they try to keep the 7-8 year olds together in the same heats. That way everyone is racing against kids at roughly the same ability as there is a HUGE difference in athletic ability of a 7 year old compared to a 5 year old. So Brady races against mostly 5-year-olds and sometimes 6 year olds. Within each heat (8 participants per heat for the sprints), they hand out ribbons for places within heat. That gives you an idea of the structure of these events, so when Brady places high, he's not beating the 8 year olds, it's just a reflection of how well he does against about 7 other kids his own age.

Now on to the races!! After about 4 weeks of practice, he races in his first track meet on June 12, 2010, at Southlake High School. The coaches entered Brady in the 50m dash, the 100m, and the 200m. The first race up was the 100m. Here it was, Brady's first ever track race! This kid handles pressure so well. I thought he'd be nervous, but he is just as calm and cool as a cucumber before he runs. He gets up, we (mom and dad) are all excited, and the gun goes off! He got a horrible start and was in last place at the 50m mark. But then he kicked it in to an extra gear and smoked the last 50m....1st place! He took first in his first ever race. That was pretty awesome. He took 6th in the 50m dash and then when the 200m came around (it's at the end of the track meet), he was pretty tired and struggled to a 7th place finish. It was a great experience for so many reasons: 1) He, and we, had fun! 2) He got some really good experience. 3) He got in some great conditioning...as he gets more conditioning, he'll feel less 'tired' at the end of the day at a track meet. 4) He got to try some new things.

His second track meet was June 19 at Mineral Wells, TX. This meet was a lot of fun and I started recording his race times so that I could write them on his ribbons. I should mention that at his early age, I'm letting him try anything and everything whether he's good at it or not. I think it's important that he gains that experience and starts to identify which events he likes most and which events he isn't that crazy about. So for this year, I'm fine with him trying anything and everything...but he'll need to cut down the number of his events to only 2 or 3 as he gets older. But for this race, I gave him the option of running the 400 meters (1/4 mile) if he wanted to. He was nervous and wavered back and forth, "yeah, I want to. No wait, I changed my mind. No wait, yes, I want to." He was nervous and scared as it's more of a 'bigger kids' race (not many kids under 7 run it), and that's understandable. Finally he decided that he wouldn't know if he liked it or not if he didn't try. So he decided to try it. His first event of the day was the 100m. He finished 2nd with a time of 20.67 seconds. Very good! Next up was the new one, the 400m. He was lumped in with the older kids (7 and 8 year olds) because there aren't many 5 year olds to race against. He took 7th (out of 7) with a time of 1 minute and 55 seconds. It was a great learning experience as he bolted out too fast for the first 200 meters (and was near the front) but then realized it's a longer race that he's used to and really struggled coming home for the final 200 meters. Although last in the heat, he was pretty close to the 5th and 6th place kids so he wasn't way far back. I thought he did great and he showed great determination. He had the biggest grin on his face when he got back to his teammates who couldn't believe he ran so well for being only 5. He felt pretty good about that. His next event was the 50m dash and he took 2nd. His last event, and I figured he'd be too tired to do well, was the 200m. He finished 2nd with a time of 49.02 seconds! That was 2 seconds faster than his fastest 200m time so far! Great job for being so tired at the end of the meet. And here's the gushing dad moment where I was so damn proud. On the way home, I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. He said it was the 400m. I said, "Really? You liked that race even though you were in last place better than the ones you place higher in?" He said emphatically, "Yep." "Why?" I asked. He answered, "Because it was so hard and I had try my best to run as fast as I could. I wouldn't have known I liked it if I wouldn't have tried it." Exactly what I wanted to hear. :)

His third track meet was in Arlington, TX this past weekend on June 26. I gave him the option of trying the 800 meters (half mile) if he watned to. The downside to the 800m is that it's the first event, which would make him pretty tired for the rest of the day. But like I said earlier, it's good experience and good conditioning. He went to the tent to get assigned to a heat. I was expecting them to do similar to what they do for the 100m and 200m and line up the under 8 kids based on age (keeping 5-6 year olds together). I asked a volunteer, "I've got a 5 year old for the 800, where's he need to line up?" The volunteer's response: "Uh, I don't know. We don't get any 5 year olds who want to run the 800." Turns out they didn't have many 8 and under for the 800 period, so they lumped them in with the 10 and unders (the meets are so long that any time they can lump together for longer races, it speeds things up so much). That's right, my 5 year old was racing against 10 year olds in his first ever 800m!! As always, he was so calm and cool before the start. I now joke with him about 'taking care of business'...I'll ask him is he's nervous and he says no, and I say you just gonna take care of business, and he says yep. :) Anyway, the heat of 10 and unders is somewhere between 15-20 kids. He lines up on the starting line, dwarfed in size by nearly all the kids, and the gun goes off! Here we go. I talked to him a lot about not going out too fast (remember his 400m learning experience above?) and he really seemed to 'get it.' He stayed very smooth and calm for the first 400m and then tried to go a little faster to catch kids on the 2nd lap (800 is 2 laps). He did fade a little at about the 500m mark to the 700m mark, but he had enough gas in the tank to run a very strong last 100 meters. I was impressed! So were the coaches...they usually don't let 5 year olds run the 800 because they usually can't run it without walking (and that slows down the whole track meet, which is long anyway)...but the coaches noticed how strong he finished. The 8 and under coach told Brady after the race, "Brady, I think we found your race!" He ran a 4:20 and finished 3rd from last. I was pretty proud and impressed. Next up, he ran the 100m in a time of 20.28 seconds and took 4th. He ran the 400m right after the 100m and finished 6th with a time of 1:55.87, the same he did last week (but last week he wasn't already tired from the 800m!). Next event was the 50m and finished 6th. The 100, 400, and 50 are all back-to-back-to-back so he is pretty spent by the end of the 50. He then had some time to rest and relax before the 200m. He ran a 50.86 second 200m and finished 2nd. Very good track meet and his fitness is getting a lot better and his running form is looking quite good. When he started, he just looked like a little kid running around, but now, he looks more like a track runner with a purpose. Oh, and how does he like the 800m even though he was toward the back? He said it's his favorite along with the 400m. The kid loves running.

He's lucky in that he's joined a very, very good track team. Our kids place very high compared to a lot of other teams. No one on the team, and also the parents, can believe how much he can run though. He may not be the fastest, but man he can just run and run and run without getting too tired. Most kids only can do 2-3 events because they get too tired, but Brady seems to just be able to run forever. And they also are pretty impressed with his speed for being only 5. At the end of the meet last weekend, as the parents were joking about how much he runs, I jokingly asked him if he wanted to run the 1600m (the mile, it's right after the 200m), and he said, "how many laps it is?" I said "4." He said, "Yes, I want to run it." The parents all laughed but one dad said, "The thing is, he's not joking. He'd really go try it right now." He was right. I asked Brady later that night if he really did want to try the mile in a race (which they don't even have an 8 and under age group for that race as most kids are 9 or 10). I also told him that he would have to race against bigger kids who are a lot faster than him, so he'll probably come in last. He was okay with that. So this weekend, 4th of July weekend, we do not have a track meet. I told him that we'll go to the track and I'll time him in the mile to see if he is in good enough shape to try it. He's okay with that. So if he runs it well this weekend in training, we're going to let him try it in a meet the following weekend. The problem is that he will be dead-legged tired as he doesn't want to give up any of his other races: the 800, 100, 400, 50, and the 200. The 1600m comes after all of those. I think he's willing to give up the 50 and the 200, but he really likes the 800 and 400 and the 100 to a lesser extent.

I'll post an update and let you know how his mile goes this weekend as well as updates on future track meet results.

Big Bend National Park 2010 - Greatest Family Vacation Ever!

2010-06-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

We all have memories, and lots of them. Most are benign. “Last time I turned on the shower and walked in immediately, the water was cold. I should wait until it warms up this time.” But I believe that there are a handful of a select few memories we accumulate in our lives that really make a lasting impression on us. I don’t mean that we simply remember them until we die, I mean they permanently change the direction of the path we’re traveling in life. They force us to self-evaluate and learn more about ourselves…what makes me happy, what are my priorities, what do I want to accomplish, what do I truly ‘need’ in life, what do I wish I could change in my life? In other words, “Who am I and where am I going?” For me, this trip was one of those memories. It was one I’ll never forget. And it was amazing.

Pardon the philosophical meanderings. I’ll chalk it up to a Big Bend hangover. We can only live in the now, but I hope this was the first of many such memories with my family. I want to accumulate as many positive, life-changing memories as I can before I die. I’ll touch more on that at the end of this, but for now, let’s get to the more proximate, short-term highlights of this incredible trip.

Here are some quick stats to start off, or as I like to call it:

Inside the numbers:
Miles driven: 1,400+
Shaded temp at mid-day: 100 F
No. of pictures taken: 578 (145 by Melanie, 433 by me)
No. of bird species positively identified: 46
No. of reptile species found: 11+
No. of bee stings: 2 (Melanie’s was much worse than mine)
Most hours spent in the park in one day: 13.5
No. of whining kids who were afraid to hike up steep mountains and through hot desert valleys in 100+ F heat: 0

First off, I’m a biology and science dork, so of course a place like Big Bend with all its unique features will appeal to me. But when the first words out of an accountant’s mouth are, “Wow, this is really cool,” that should speak volumes of how incredible Big Bend is. Phrases like that were one of the first things Melanie said when we got there. She said it multiple times on the trip. So did I. So did the boys.

I’m not a great bird watcher, so many species were left as ‘unidentifiable.’ Irks me to not be able to ID them (I think of it as solving a puzzle, which is fun for me), but there were a lot that were new to me but I couldn’t figure out. Of those 46 I could positively identify, 14 species were ones I hadn’t seen before. That was cool. We saw some cool herps, most common were the whiptail lizards (no pics). There are multiple species of whiptails in the park and I can’t ID them without having in-hand, hence the 11+ count. I’m counting it as at least 1 species, but probably a couple more. We did find one species of snake that I had never seen before (Trans-Pecos Rat Snake), which was pretty cool for me. The boys thought the lizards were all pretty cool and Brady was really good at finding them.

Cophosaurus texanus - Southwestern Earless Lizard

They also got to see their first Texas Horned lizards in the wild as we found some in an area just west of San Angelo on the drive out there. Got some DNA samples for a project that I’m helping to collect data. :) The boys thought the rattlesnakes were pretty cool (they stayed in the truck) and got to hear it rattle when it dashed away from me while trying to take a picture. I did get some good pics of a young one.

Day 1
On the first evening being there, we basically drove around and got an idea of where we wanted to hit for the next 2 days. We drove all around the south side and did a short amount of exploring. We drove back to our cabin after the sun had set and stopped to get pics of snakes: one Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (no pics, Melanie spotted it but it darted off too quickly), a huge Bullsnake, and a Trans-Pecos Rat Snake. It took a lot of restraint to not grab the rat snake to get better pictures! (Because it’s a National Park, handling any specimens is illegal. I don’t need marks on my record if I were caught handling anything given that my job requires getting permits for research!)

Pituophis melanoleucus - Bullsnake

Bogertophis subocularis - Trans-Pecos Rat Snake

Day 2
On our first full day, we hit some of the major overlooks on the Ross Maxwell scenic drive. We also hiked down to an old abandoned ranch (Blue Creek/Homer Wilson Ranch) in one of the valleys (Blue Creek/Red Rocks canyon trail).

It was a hot, but short hike. The boys were pretty excited on the hike, which was a good sign for us—didn’t want to force them to hike, so having them excited about it meant that we’d be able to see a lot more stuff without a fuss. From there, we went down to Santa Elena Canyon and had lunch. We hiked the 1.7 mile trail, which included going up and over a pretty high overlook to get back down into the canyon. Both the overlook and canyon were really impressive. Brady loved it, but Alex had to be carried a bit on the hard parts. I was still impressed given the temps and how difficult climbing up was…the boys did great.

View into Santa Elena Canyon. Note the 3 hikers in the lower right for scale.

Looking up from within Santa Elena Canyon.

Our super little 3 year old hiker!

Canoes on the Rio Grande in Santa Elena Canyon.

View looking out when climbing back out of the Canyon. You can see my red truck on the left.

We then spent the rest of the day in the High Chisos Mountains walking around the Basin. Lightning rolled in, so we had to call it an abbreviated day. I also found out on this day that a license plate that says LIZARDS arouses the suspicion of park rangers…had to answer some questions a ranger had for me regarding just how much I liked lizards and what exactly I was doing in the park. Personally, I’d rather get grilled with questions than have lack of regulation of illegal collecting. I was actually relieved by this.

Day 3
With a shortened day, and resting up the previous night, we hit it hard on the second full day! We started in the Chisos Basin in the morning and hiked up into the mountains.

Brady was phenomenal…I could hardly keep up with him. Alex was pretty impressive for an almost 3 year old. I don’t think we ran across anyone that didn’t say “Wow, I can’t believe you guys are up here hiking like this for your age.” They were paid lots of compliments and they liked that everyone thought they were ‘cool’ for hiking. After a little over a mile on the way up, Alex was tired but Brady didn’t want to quit. Melanie and Alex walked back down and Brady and I continued on for about another mile. It was an excellent time and it was clear to me that he and I are really going to have some epic hikes as he gets older.

Brady didn’t even mention his legs getting tired until we got back down from the mountain after a good 2-3 hours of hiking in elevation. But he and Alex scarfed down some Fun Dip candy (i.e., pure sugar) at the bottom of the trail and they were ready to hike again! We grabbed lunch and then started up another long hike in the mountains toward Emory Peak/Boot Canyon. It was great and had some really good views and lots of really neat birds. I was hoping to see a Colima Warbler (a Big Bend specialty), but no such luck. The boys, once again, were quite impressive with their hiking abilities. And most importantly, they were loving it!

After the Chisos Basin, we drove down toward Rio Grande Village campsite and went to Boquillas Canyon.

We hiked this trail during the heat of the day, so it was a slow journey. We made frequent shade stops so the boys could get water. They were hot, but were having a lot of fun laughing and running. We made it to the canyon which was neat, but not nearly as cool as Santa Elena Canyon. At the end of the trail, the Rio Grande is really narrow. The boys were throwing rocks into the river, so I told them to throw one as far as they could. They each made it just past the halfway point in the river, so I told them they just threw a rock into Mexico. They thought that was pretty cool. After Boquillas Canyon, we went to Rio Grande Village picnic area for a dinner of sandwiches. We saw some cool birds, including Vermillion Flycatchers (one of the brightest birds we have in the U.S.).
He wouldn't sit still, so this is the best shot I got that shows how bright the orange/red is.

We hiked up a steep slope and saw a whipsnake, a beautiful Blue Grosbeak (they are pretty common around there), and had a great view of the valley.
Blue Grosbeak

But it was getting a little steep on the trail edges for our comfort level with the boys, so we headed back down. We drove to Hot Springs next and the boys got to put their feet in it and yes, more rock throwing into the Rio Grande (rock throwing is one of their favorite past times). The rock formations at Hot Springs were really neat and we saw lots of Canyon Wren nests.

Rock formations at Hot Springs

Canyon Wren nests

Canyon Wren

There were also some old abandoned buildings from the 40s—an old store and hotel. These were some of Melanie’s favorite places from the trip. We also saw the mother of all palm trees, actually about 4-5 palm trees in one cluster. If you stood in the middle, it was like a cathedral overhead. It was very cool.

Looking up inside the palm 'cathedral.'

To conclude the day, we drove back up to the Chisos Basin, got a few sunset pictures and then headed back to the cabin. A total of 13.5 hours in the park and not one complaint from the boys.

Day 4
On our last morning, we packed up all our stuff from the cabin. I say cabin, but it’s really a mobile home trailer at a place called Wildhorse Station in Terlingua (just outside the park). If you ever visit Big Bend, I HIGHLY recommend you stay here. Although simple, it was a great place to go back to at night that felt a little bit like home. I think this ‘home’ feeling went a long way with Melanie and the boys. And when it’s 100+ degrees, it was nice to be there and showered in the morning instead of in a tent. I particularly enjoyed the peaceful mornings on the porch listening to the Black-throated Sparrows.

After leaving Wildhorse, we decided to drive back to the park and then leave via the north entrance/exit…we hadn’t even sniffed the north side of the park, so we at least wanted to drive through it. On our way out, we saw several roadkill Desert Spiny lizards (a beautiful lizard when alive), a Texas Horned lizard, and a small diamondback rattlesnake. I got some great pictures of the rattlesnake as he/she just laid there and let me take as many pictures as I wanted. The only hard part was making sure I wasn’t roadkill from other vehicles.

After leaving the park, it was back to Fort Worth. The boys travel so well, so it was really nice. No major meltdowns from kids or parents! We made frequent stops to stretch the legs which slowed us down a lot, but the trade off was that everyone stayed relatively happy the whole way home. The only unhappy part was that this amazing family experience was coming to a conclusion.

And on that note, I’d like to conclude this long-winded post by coming back to my philosophical meanderings I touched on at the beginning. On the drive home, Melanie asked each of the boys what their favorite part was and then I asked her the same. We went around saying what each of us liked the most. Spending time together was the obvious one that we all agreed upon, but the boys had multiple answers for more Big Bend specific items: the mountains, birds, snakes and lizards, etc. When it came to my turn for a Big Bend specific feature, my answer will probably surprise most of you that know me. As much as I love herps and birds, my favorite part of Big Bend was the geology. I had been thinking about the geology when we first arrived. It stood out to me. Here, you have these massive features with exposed layers of rock. These once nearly-horizontal layers were now essentially vertical in many places. The force of the tectonic plates smashing into each other had to be amazing. I’m not a geologist, but I think these mountains were formed at the time of the Marathon Plate, about 300 million years ago. Despite erosion and weathering trying their best to make these massive structures ‘less impressive’ over time, there they stood, 300 million years later, still impressive as ever. But this is a point I try to get across to students in biology class, most people really do not understand just how long 300 million years really is. A lot can happen in that much time. Look at it this way: think of how short 1 second is compared to 1 year; it’s nothing, not even a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. But if I asked you to stare at a clock for 1 million seconds, you’d be sitting there for 11.5 days. If I asked you to stare at a clock for 300 million seconds, you’d be sitting there for almost 9.5 years. Think of how much can happen in those 9.5 years, especially if you were only alive for 90 seconds or less of it. What’s the point of these geological musings? Our human life span is virtually nothing from this perspective. It may seem like a long time, but it’s not; our lives are over almost as soon as they start. We don’t want to admit it, but it’s true. And here I was, in an even shorter time span—only 4 days out of my already short-life—and I was as happy and content as I have ever been. I was spending time in an amazing place with my family. You can draw your own inferences as to what you see as important, but what I took out of this was a realization of how happy I can be in such a brief glimpse of time and how other things pale in comparison to these events. Times like these, they won’t last forever. And time is always changing; I won’t ever be able exactly recreate that same feeling I had at Big Bend, but I look forward to adding new life-changing memories similar to this one before my blink-of-an-eye life in this universe is up. And I’ve got the best family I could ask for to travel along that path with me.

A complete set of my Big Bend photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10947447@N08/sets/72157624191299264/

So what have you been up to in the last 8 months?

2010-06-01T14:52:00.000-07:00

I said last year that I’d be better about keeping my blog updated. But unfortunately, it’s been a good 8 months or so since my last update. Here, I thought I’d give a general overview of what’s going on with our family since last October. I know I’m leaving out some stuff that I can’t think about off the cuff, but this should at least hit the major highlights.

Alex
Alex is turning 3 in just a few days, so this week is kind of crazy getting ready for his party. He basically thinks he’s 5, and even tells people that when they ask him how old he is. We have to speak up and say, “no, he’s really just 2 but he thinks he’s 5 because that’s how old big brother is.” We tell him he’s only 3, but he refuses to believe it. He will be eligible to play soccer this fall and he’s looking forward to that. He’s also doing really well swimming so will likely take lessons in the winter. I suspect he will be swimming on his own by the end of next summer. He just moved up into the ‘big kid’ class at daycare/school, so he’s been pretty excited about that. He also loves going on hikes looking for birds, especially cardinals. Amazingly, he can actually identify a small number of birds correctly!

Brady
Wow. What to say about this kid. He’s just crazy busy. He played soccer in the spring and moved into the 5-6 year old league, although many of the kids were 7! Not sure how that works, but anyway, it was a learning experience for him. They incorporate positions (offense and defense) and it’s starting to look more like soccer instead of group running. By the end of the season, he was playing really well. I’ll tell you this much…no one on that field runs harder than he does! Love the effort. He’s playing baseball this summer and has moved up into coach’s pitch. We do some fun ‘practice’ in the backyard and he’s really improved from his previous 2 years playing. He’s had hits from the pitch the last couple of games, which was great. (If they don’t hit on 3 pitches, they get 2 tries from the tee.) He’s also doing pretty well swimming and really wants to do another triathlon. He wants to play football in the fall, so we haven’t decided if we are going to drop soccer or try to do both. He’s really good at soccer, but is very anxious to try football. Oh, and to top it off, he learned that one of his teachers at school coaches 5-8 year olds for Track and Field. Once he learned that Track and Field = running, he was all about that! We got him on a track team over the summer and he’s been loving it! It’s expensive, and very time consuming—practice is on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights—but it’s worth it if he really likes it. Growing up, track was by far my favorite sport and Brady seems to feel that way too. I’m being very aware to make sure and not push him in that direction though. If he wants to do it, it’s going to be up to him. But it sure makes me proud to see him out there when they are running repeats. :)

Melanie
Melanie finished all her coursework to be able to sit for the CPA exam last year (the requirements had changed since she graduated). So she’s been studying for the CPA exam for the last several months. She just took the first section and she hasn’t heard back yet if she passed or has to retake (retaking is common), so we’ve got our fingers crossed. In her free time, which doesn’t exist, she’s been trying to get in a swim here, a run there, or a spin class at lunch. She’s still wanting to do triathlons, but time is just so limited due to her CPA exam schedule.

Me
I’ve been working a lot, but have really done a good job of reducing weekly hours from 60 to 40-50 to have more time for the boys. I’m much happier, and still productive. I was stressed because my job funding runs out at the end of this year, so I’ve been applying for faculty positions. I got one interview at a school that I liked, and probably would have accepted if they offered, but they didn’t see me as what they were looking for. That’s the way the ball bounces in this business. I struck out with all my other applications. But luckily, both of the people I work under seem to be happy with my productivity and work so they have found a way to extend my position to a third year (it was originally funded only as a 2 year position). That’s been a huge relief for us, especially since we like it here so much. I’m very happy with my job and so is Melanie with hers. We’re excited to be in Fort Worth for another year! I’ll be applying for jobs again this fall for when my 3rd year expires. Other than work, everything’s been geared around the boys. We’ve been having a lot of fun. I’m not training for any triathlons, but have been at least staying in decent shape. Really my only fitness related goal is to just not go long periods of time of doing nothing. Running is what I do most often though.

Us
This year has been great for us as a family. Now that Alex is getting older, we’re doing a lot more things together. In March, we went down to Dinosaur Valley State Park to do some hiking, learn about dinosaurs, and see some birds. The boys loved it, so we also took them to Fort Worth Nature Center to do some hiking. In April, we went on our first family camping trip to South Llano River State Park in Texas hill country. It was beautiful and was a great time. I hope to post a blog update on that sometime in the next 2 weeks. And yesterday, we just got back from Big Bend National Park. It was amazing and we all had a lot of fun. I think all of us were sad to start today not waking up to the scenery. I’ll post a blog update on that tomorrow.

I’ll probably be making some catch-up posts in the next month, so expect a flurry of activity on the blog. Also, you can follow our pictures on flickr.com. In order to see our pictures, you do have to sign up for a free Yahoo mail account. Once you have that, you can search for me under the same name as my sbcglobal e-mail account (karstenkb@...). Add me as a contact and when you do, I’ll be able to add you as a Friend/Family. From there, you can access all the pictures. If you have any problems, let me know and I’ll try get it figured out. I got a new camera this spring, so I’ve been taking lots and lots of pictures. They are there for you to view if you want. :)

Karsten Triathlon weekend!

2009-10-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Monster Triathlon in Keller, TX. Brady's race on Saturday, and Melanie and I on Sunday. It's a long one!!! Doubt you'll read it to the end all in one setting. Sorry, but I'm just so darn proud of Brady and Melanie that I want to talk mostly about them.

Brady's big day

Saturday, Oct 24, was Brady's first ever official triathlon! It was a 25 meter swim, 1 mile bike, and 0.33 mile run. In the days leading up to it, you could tell Brady was really nervous about it. We just told him that being nervous is normal, but it's nothing to be scared of or worried about. He did pretty well with that.

We go to start the swim; they used 6 lanes with 2 kids per lane. They didn't allow the next 12 kids to start until all of the previous 12 were out of the pool. The 4-6 year old age group was up first. First wave goes off, Brady's quiet. The only time he talks is to say, "I wish I could just start." Second wave goes off. I'm trying to distract him by talking to him and asking him random stuff. Again, the only words he says is, "I wish I could just go ahead and start already." Third wave. Now comes Brady's turn. Oh my gosh...I can't tell you how nervous I was for him. I was more nervous for him than I have ever been at one of my own races, and probaby 10-fold more nervous at that. He goes to get into the water and hang on the wall to wait for the start, but he won't go in all the way. I tell him he needs to get down in further, but he only wants to sit with his feet hanging over and not in all the way. I'm thinking, "Oh no, he's getting too nervous and is wanting to back out." I tell him I'm proud of him and he'll do great. The whistle blows. I hold my breath to see how he responds. Boom! He jumps off without hesitation ready to have at it! Whew, one obstacle down. I am watching him while walking around to the other side of the pool to meet him. My heart just sinks as I see all the other kids swimming fast and Brady is really struggling to keep moving forward. My heart sank because I didn't want him to get discouraged or upset by this. I get to the other end of his lane. The other 11 kids are all done and he's about 3/4 the way finished. Everyone is cheering him on. He's barely moving forward (he has a life vest on, so not sinking) and I'm just hoping he doesn't panic and want to quit. I have to admit that I started to get choked up; I just wanted to make sure he was going to have fun and enjoy this. At one point, it looked like he was going to stop and he grabbed onto the lane line. In only a fraction of a second, he let go as if to say, "no way am I giving up now!" He continued on and finished the swim in about 5 and a half minutes...I have never been so proud of him for his perseverence and determination. Hell, I'm even getting choked up now just writing about it.

It was very cold out, so when he got out of the pool, I dried him off best I could before going outside. We went to T1 and did a quick change to dry clothes due to temps in 50s, then got him off on the bike. A quick background note: Brady's outgrown his bike so fast. Rather than buy a new one for him that fits him better in the late fall--and then having him outgrow it by spring--we decided to make due with his current bike and get him a new one that fits him in the spring. Poor guy was out on the bike and was getting passed by everyone. But he toughed it out and worked really hard. I ran next to him the whole way. His major motivation for finishing the bike was so he could run and then get donuts at the finish line. Hey man, whatever works! He was glad to be done with the bike and his pace/mile on the bike is actually slower than his running pace/mile!! We really need to get him a new bike.

Now that his least favorite part (the bike) was over, it was time to do what he loves best. Running! That kid tore up the run!!! Most other kids by that late in the race were walking for most of the run. Not Brady. He passed a bunch of kids, ran the whole way, and ran at a pretty good pace for a 4-year-old (around 14 minutes per mile, if I remember correctly). He finished strong, with a finishing time around 27 minutes, and he got his medal for completing his first ever triathlon! He loved it, and more importantly to him, he loved getting the donuts at the finish! Not 5 minutes after he was done, he asked if he could do the race again. I said no, but then he asked if he could at least go do the run again. Gotta love that kid's enthusiasm and passion.

Brady the triathlete

The real reason he likes to race

The glazed sugar face

And here comes my proudest moment of the day. I asked him what part was the most fun for him. His answer totally shocked me: "The swim." I told him he did great on the swim and I was so proud of him for trying so hard. His response: "Yeah, I just took my time nice and easy and didn't worry about it." Awesome.

Sunday's Sprint Triathlon for the big kids

As most people reading this know, Melanie has already completed her first triathlon. But, she finished that race with a bit of a feeling of unfinished business since the bike was cut so very short due to weather. So I think in her mind, and in mine, this was her first real big test of doing a complete sprint triathlon. Since then, she's started to be a little more analytical with the sport; she's started to see the value of going over training and racing data to improve weaknesses and accentuate her strengths. She's added some things in her training to help her improve for this race, but I think one of the best things she did was realize that she did not push herself like she could have to reach her potential in her first race. That's normal for a first event, but sports like this are new territory for her. She was very athletic growing up, but she's never done a sport where she has to push herself to the brink of failure, and then hold that level of pain for as long as possible without crossing into the failure/exhaustion/bonking zone. It's not easy to do. She came to the realization that if she wanted to race faster (a goal of hers), racing faster hurts. There's no way around it. Now comes the test to see if she can do it.

There were 556 athletes who finished and 2 DNFs. I was busy with my own race, so I didn't get to see her swim and only saw her as she came off the bike. But I can relay stats and numbers. I think she had a good swim...she met her swim time goal. She was ranked 119th out of 225 women in the swim overall, and 25th out of 43 in her age group. Not shabby for someone who has swam for only about a month. She had a great first transition (T1)! She had the 15th fastest out of 225 and the 3rd fastest out of 43 in her AG. She had a very good bike split: 50th out of 225 OA and 8th out of 43 in AG. And this is without any aero bars on a very windy day, which makes a huge difference!! We're going to get her set up with some aero bars this winter; she's going to be pretty darn high on the bike splits next year, I think. Her T2 was also pretty good: 74 out of 225 OA and 16 out of 43 in AG. I saw her in T2 and she said she'd been cramping all day, so I know she was feeling uncomfortable. But now came the run, the event that is most challenging for her both physically and mentally. Like T2, she also was 74th out of 225 OA and 16th out of 43 in AG for the run, which I think was really great. Not only that, but she pushed herself to that mental and physical pain barrier and stayed there the whole time. She exceeded what I thought she could do for her run split and she met her own personal expectations for time (on a very difficult run course no less!). She did really well. She finished with a time of 1:23:17 and placed 49th out of 225 overall and 9th out of 43 in AG. Awesome considering this was really her first full sprint triathlon. I think she did great. And she felt like crap the rest of the day, so she now knows what racing to her limits feels like. :) I'm very proud.

Another great time for me this weekend was that the newly formed TCU tri club, the Tri Frogs, had their first club race together. Unfortunately, I didn't get to wear my TCU jersey for the race, but I did get mine post-race....it's sweet! Anyway, I really like this group because it's mostly young, college kids who are just now getting exposed to the sport. They are almost exclusively inexperienced, and this was the first race for nearly all of them except a handful of people. A lot of these students don't even own bikes...they had to borrow hybrids and other types of bikes from family and friends just to have something to race on Sunday. I love, and really admire, that type of enthusiasm. I'm sure that many of them would be perfectly willing to ride a kids bike with a basket and bell if it meant they could do a triathlon. That's a real love for the sport. Anyway, it was great to see them all get to enjoy this experience, and they had quite a few of them place in age group. Congrats to all of them!

As for me, it was a bit of a frustrating day. I didn't train from May-August, but when the TCU tri club named this as their event, I was motivated to sign up and get off my butt. Obviously, with only training for 6 weeks prior to the race, I wasn't going to race at my potential, but it's still hard to swallow when you come to the realization that you just aren't in very good shape yet. Probably more disappointing was all the little mistakes I made pre-race and during race...simple stuff that is usually just habit. I felt all discombobulated and the rust of not racing since April clearly showed. I'll expand more when I get to the bike.

I haven't swam much in 6 weeks, but I feel like I made the most of when I did. I was actually pretty pleased with my swim. I felt strong and I paced evenly. My time was slower than training times, but this always happens in a pool swim. I was okay with it. My pace for the swim was about as good as I get when I train regularly for it, so the fact I met that level of fitness in such a short time is promising to me. The sad part is that even if I train for 6 months or 6 weeks, I'm still slow. :( I had the 86th ranked swim out of 330 men overall, and 13th out of 42 in AG. I made a rookie mistake in T1 which cost me a little bit, but still didn't do too bad (you don't have to be fit to have fast transitions!): 9th out of 330 OA, 3rd out of 42 in AG. Now to the bike fiasco...I made a huge error in studying the course map for the bike; I thought I was supposed to turn left at one point but I was instead supposed to turn right. No one was at the intersection to direct me, but there was a sign pointing to the right. I thought this was a mistake since I studied the course and saw this as a left turn. So I turned left. I rode okay, but not great. I couldn't hold my target wattage for the ride, but tried to ride pretty smart. My legs just weren't up to the task to be peaking that day, but they were good enough to not suck. It's a 2 loop course, and when I start my 2nd loop I see all the people using the section I was supposed to be on by turning right instead of left. Oh $&!#. I just realized that I cheated and cut the course short. I'll touch more on that later. I was mentally sort of packing it in at this point, but continued to ride as strong as I could to T2. T2 was NOT good (by my personal expectations): 57th OA and 8th in AG. I start the run and the lack of training is starting to set in. I'm mentally really focusing on going faster, but my legs just will not respond. Post race data shows my HR much lower than it should be for a sprint 5K, which tells me that my body (heart/lungs/etc) wasn't experience the stress it should because my legs simply couldn't go faster. I'm okay with how I handled it mentally though, as my second mile did not slow from my first and my third mile was just slightly faster than miles 1 and 2. A very evenly run 5K for me at a pace that was as fast as my legs could go...that's all I can do. Had the 32nd run out of 330 OA and 8th out of 42 in AG. Finish time was 1:03:56 and I was hoping I could somehow magically pull a sub-hour out of my butt, but no luck. Took 10th OA and 4th in AG based on the timing company's results.

However, post-race, I searched for an official to report my cutting of the course. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one, but I have sent an e-mail to the Race Director requesting that I be assessed a 2:00 penalty for cutting it short. I measured the portion I cut and it was 0.3 miles, which takes me about 45 seconds at race pace to cover. But 45 seconds is a lot in a short triathlon, so it's not fair to the other athletes. Hopefully that penalty gets assessed. So, keeping that in mind, I'm currently listed as the 7th fastest bike split out of 330 and 2nd out of 42 in AG. However, adding in the 45 seconds I should have gone knocks me down to 11th OA and 3rd in AG. Similarly, I'm currently listed as placing 10th OA and 4th in AG, but the 2 minute penalty will knock me down to 17th OA, but my place in AG doesn't change...remain 4th.

It's always disappointing when you underperform from your potential, but I took some positives away from my race this weekend. I went from couch (more like office chair!) to triathlon in only 6 weeks, and made a lot of fitness gains in a very short about of time. I found out a lot of things in training these past 6 weeks about my strengths and weaknesses; I think focusing on these over the winter is going to pay big dividends next spring. I also found some training strategies that made huge strides in short time, so focusing on those over longer term will be interesting to see how much I can improve as a triathlete. I'm going to analyze all those things in a separate, and much more boring, post later this week.

If you made it this far, it probably took you about as long as it took Brady to finish his triathlon. Sorry for making so long!

Clash of the Titans and other weekend fun

2009-10-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Busy, but fun weekend. Just a quick recap...

Saturday morning was the Clash of the Titans. Brady's soccer team is very good, with at least half a dozen very good players on it. Most other teams have 1 or 0 really good players. But Saturday morning they played a team that had 2 really good kids on it, and the rest of the team was fairly good, too. It was a close battle, with the score tied 0-0 after the first quarter (most of the time, Brady's team wins 20+ to 0 or 1). Eventually, Brady's team started scoring and took the lead. But they won only by a margin of 7-1. I mention this not because I care if they win or lose, but having a team play them that close actually made the first half really exciting!! It was great to watch. As for Brady, it wasn't his best game. For the first time in his young soccer life, he didn't score a goal. That's fine, but the reason it wasn't his best game was because he wasn't paying very good attention and was very timid about going after the ball. He seemed to be more content running around 10 feet away from the ball than trying to actually get it. I don't care if he scores or not, but I do like to see him try his best. Oh well, there are always days like this. :)

Later that afternoon, we went to Mainstay farms to look at the pumpkin patch. It was okay, but the boys were whiney and a little difficult to manage (it was near lunch and nap time). We cut it short, but got some good pics and got to see lots of pumpkins. The most fun thing for them was playing on the hay bails and jumping around, although Alex scared the crap out of me with his horrible balance! Even just a 3 foot fall is a lot for a 2 year old.

Sunday we went to do a fun race. The boys were set to race a 1K and then right afterward, I was running in the 5K. There weren't many kids in the 1K, but holy crap were they fast! I knew Brady started out way too fast (they all do) when I looked down and saw he was running 7 min/mile pace out of the start! He eventually realized that was not going to work and slowed back down to his normal pace. Brady came in 2nd to last, but ran a great time of 7:14! My running computer had it measured a little long (0.70 miles instead of 0.62 miles), so depending on which is more accurate, he ran somewhere in between 10:20 and 11:40 minutes per mile pace. Very good for a 4 year old! I was really proud. I knew he gave it his best effort because at the end, he usually kicks it in for a fast sprint. At this race, he barely sped up at the end, so I know he left it all out there. Really great run for him and like I already said, very proud of him.

Now, Alex's race, a little different story. He brought up the rear, but that was expected since he's 2! Unlike his first 1K race, he decided he didn't want to run the whole way through. So Melanie ended up having to carry him when he got tired and he cut it short. But hey, some days you just don't feel like running, and this was one of those days for Alex. He did eventually come through the finish line when we were about to start the 5K, and everyone gave him loud cheers. That's was fun, but he looked pretty tired.

I can't complain about my race. My time was nothing to write home about (20:37; 6:38 min/mi pace), but it was where I expected to be given my current fitness level. I can't expect too much on only 5 weeks of training. On one hand, I felt like my lungs were my limiter; like my legs could go faster if my lungs could just breathe better. But on the other hand, my legs were tired for the entire 2nd half of the race. I really think I went about as fast as I possibly could, so I'm happy with that. I went too fast for the 1st mile, but settled in and maintained even pace for miles 2 and 3 despite that I was really hurting at the halfway point. I tried to stay mentally tough and focus on my running form, to keep it from degrading as I got tired. I haven't gone over the data from my running computer, but I think there's a lot I can take away from it that was positive and a few things to improve going into the triathlon next weekend.

The number triathletes in our house has now doubled!

2009-10-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I'm just now getting around writing about this, but the weekend of October 4th was Melanie's first triathlon! She competed in the Women's Benbrook Sprint Tri. The weather was just plain awful: pouring rain, low 60s, and windy. Because of flooding on the bike course, the bike was shortened from 13.8 miles down to only 4.4 miles. The race director (RD) claimed it to be 6, but the times and Melanie's bike computer indicate 4.4. One option was to eliminate the bike and have a swim/run, but hats off to the RD for keeping the bike route even though it was crazy short...for many of these women, Melanie included, it was their first triathlon and he wanted to keep the bike route as much in tact as possible so they can say they have done an official triathlon. I know Melanie walked away a little disappointed with the distance reduction, but it was still a tremendous accomplishment.

Always smiling.

First off, 280 women registered, and only 196 showed (1 was a DNF). My hats off to everyone who showed up to race despite such awful conditions. Melanie was nervous about the swim, but she has really taken to the water quickly in just a few weeks. She has a natural swimming ability for someone who's never done it before. She had the 121st fastest swim overall and 26th out of 41 in age group. She had a pretty good transition: the 17th fastest in age group. Cycling is her strength, and she had 45th fastest bike split overall and the 7th fastest out of 41 in age group. Her 2nd transition was pretty good, but she fell to middle of the pack relative to her age group. She went out on the run and stayed smart on a difficult course in bad conditions. Although she's not a natural runner, she is getting better by leaps and bounds. I think she exceeded her expectations on the 5K run and finished with the 91st best run out of 195 and the 19th out of 41 in her age group. And she had a great big smile when she finished. She placed 80th out of 195 overall, and 18th out of 41 in age group with a time of 57:42.

For someone who picked up swimming on a whim 3 weeks before her first race, and someone who didn't grow up as a runner, she did really, really well. Having a shortened bike course really penalizes someone like her that bikes well, but despite this inherent "penalty," she still placed rather high all things considered. The boys and I are really proud of her.

Below, the boys were playing with their new found friend during the run. I asked Brady what his name was, and he replied, "Wiggly Worm." It was funny to see them build up the courage to actually touch it, then scream, "Eeewwww" when it moved at the touch.

Coming up next for us will be a fun weekend Oct 24-25, after which 75% of our household will be triathletes. Brady has his first, real, official triathlon on Sat and Melanie and I are racing on Sunday. Should be a great weekend. As much as Alex is anxious to do a triathlon, too, he'll have to wait 2 more years...they don't let too many 2-year-olds do triathlons. He'll just have to settle for his 1K races in the meantime. :)

One last story before I'm done. The day prior to this race, Brady had a soccer game. He hadn't been able to play goalie yet and he thought that looked cool and fun since they get to use their hands, so he wanted to try. The problem is that the goalie on the opposite teams gets all the action because we have so many good kids on our team; our goalie just stands there playing with the net. So he is talking to me while he's in goal. "Dad, I'm bored. I don't want to play goalie anymore." I tell him to just wait for his turn to get the ball and he can get it with his hands like the other goalie. So finally, the other team gets a breakaway and comes down trying to score. Does Brady finally save the ball with his hands? No. Instead, he sees this as his chance to get into the action. He charges out of the net full steam and steals the ball in full stride, dribbles around everybody and cuts in toward the net and put a great shot by the goalie and into the goal. After the goal, he matter-of-factly sprinted back to his own goal and stood in net as if that is exactly how you are supposed to play goalie. The giggles among the crowd was so funny; no one quite knew how to respond to that one!

Just an update

2009-09-27T13:15:00.001-07:00

Haven't blogged anything down in a while, so thought I'd offer an update of the family and I over the last few weeks.

On Labor Day, Brady and Alex ran a 1K race. This was Brady's second race and he's getting faster each time he's done one. He's really getting the hang of pacing and racing. Didn't get his final time, but he's getting pretty quick. And Alex did his first 1K...ran the whole thing and didn't even walk once! Not bad for a 2 year old!!

Melanie has gotten the triathlon bug. She's picked up swimming pretty fast, which was her biggest unknown. She's quite good on the bike, but the run is her limiter. She just didn't grow up as a runner, but she's getting much better for someone who hasn't/doesn't run a lot. I like that she's getting into it, and she's been able to keep a great balance between work, family, training, and finishing her last 2 classes before sitting for the CPA exam. I think the hard part for me is to sit back. I'd love to just tell her what to do and when to do it, but I'm only offering up advice if she wants it. Her first race is coming up next weekend, October 4th, and then we'll do a race together: the Monster Tri on October 25th in Keller, TX.

Our race together has prompted me to start training again. Wow, am I out of shape! But I'm having fun and setting realistic goals. I'm trying to get in 3-7 hrs of training per week, which I don't think is too much to ask of myself. Bike and run are going okay, but I have yet to swim since April!!! Swimming is on my list this week.

Brady and Alex are getting hooked on running and riding bikes. We usually go out every Sunday and ride around Lake Benbrook with me toting the boys in the trailer. They love it and it gives Melanie and I some time in the saddle. It's definitely a good workout for me...not so much for Melanie as she has to slow down to wait for me a lot. Hauling an extra 100lbs up hills is hard! In addition to our regular family ride, the boys ask to go ride bikes or run around the neighborhood a lot. Brady will run a mile with me around our neighborhood, and our neighborhood is pretty darn hilly. Brady is signed up to do his first real triathlon on October 24th!! He's done a small, mock one I set up for him in our neighborhood before, but this one will be the real deal. He's so excited, and I'm excited for him. It's going to be so much fun.

Brady started soccer back up again. He's not quite as much of a standout as he was last season. Last year in the games I kept track of goals, he scored 12 of his team's 18. He was a force to be reckoned with! This year, he's got about 3 or 4 other kids who are all really good. But he's still the fastest of the bunch!!! The coach said to me after his 2nd game, "Wow, he is really fast." I don't know what to say...that kid loves running. But he's done well in his first 2 games so far. Scored 3 goals in his first game, but I wasn't happy with his attention span. I mean he was twirling all over the place in la-la land, falling down just to fall down...sigh. Surprised he even scored at all! I don't care how "good" or "bad" he plays, all I ask of him is to pay attention and try his best. Saturday's game, his second, was much better. He put real effort into paying attention and he was outstanding. Scored 6 goals and came back on defense to steal the ball numerous times. I think the other team only scored 1--maybe zero, actually--and Brady's team had about 20 (told ya he's got a bunch of good kids on his team!). I felt bad for the other team, but they still looked like they were having fun, which is all that matters. Their goalie was so cute...everytime he made a save, he'd run over to his dad with the ball and say how many times he's stopped the ball so far. "Dad, that's the fifth time I stopped it!" Too cute. And he was pretty damn good at goalie, too. Made some really good saves.

Well, that's some of the highlights over the last few weeks. More to come I'm sure now that soccer season is in full-swing and Melanie and Brady have triathlons coming up. Poor Alex gets so frustrated because he wasn't to do a triathlon and play soccer, too. Maybe when he's 3 he can get started.

Enough is enough...

2009-09-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

I had a life changing event in 2004. Prior to that, my life priorities were straightforward...outside of family, my entire life revolved around my research. After that experience, I came to the realization that although I truly love my job, I wasn't completely happy with life. There were many things I wanted to accomplish and life was too short to focus so much on just one thing. I started doing triathlons shortly thereafter. Since then, triathlon has been a constant reminder to me of that life changing event...life is short and I need to maximize my happiness while I can.

Fast forward to 2008-2009...

I trained sporadically from Jan-Aug '08 because I was busy with work. I took 5 months off from Sep '08-Jan '09 because I was too busy with work. I started training for triathlons again in Feb '09 and once again felt happy and complete...reminded about that life changing event. Then I took 4 months off from May-Aug '09 because I was busy with work. See a pattern? As I finally got off my out-of-shape butt the other night to go on a run, I realized enough was enough. I was becoming the person I didn't want to be again. I love what I do for a living, but having it consume my life isn't what I aspire to do.

I am going back to being true to myself and the resolution I made in 2004. I am finding that balance again. More family time. Starting back up in triathlons. I still plan to be productive and do my job well, but the 55+ hour work weeks (and a few 75+ over the summer) have got to go. I'm going to do my job well, but I can only do so much. If this pisses people off that expect me to do more work, I'll feel bad about that. I don't want to disappoint anyone. But I'm just going to do what I can do from now on without sacrificing my personal and family time. And people are just going to have to deal with that.

My 3 mile run the other night was one of the slowest runs I've ever done, but I was as happy as could be.

Tri-Benbrook Sprint Triathlon race report

2009-04-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well, if you remember my 2009 resolutions, one of them was to not have gaps in my training due to life/work getting too busy. I wasn't asking for much: just 2x workouts per sport per week at the minimum. After Lone Star, I had a planned week of rest, but for the last 2 weeks, I've fallen into my old trap of skipping workouts due to crazy work schedule. Sigh... Anyway, I wasn't too keen on doing Benbrook after having done nothing for 3 weeks, but I just kept telling myself I was well-rested! The course for this race is in an area that I train in a lot now since moving to Ft. Worth, so this is a bit of a "backyard" race for me.

Swim was a pool swim, which I absolutely hate pool swims in races. Never fails that the people in front of me put down the wrong times for their seeding and I'm stuck behind slower people, and then there is always someone behind me who put down too slow of time and is plowing over me to get by...much rather just swim in open water. But this swim actually went well! I was seeded #45 and the girl seeded in front of me was at the right pace and so was the guy behind me. I was able to relax, and although only a 3oo yard swim, I was happy with my time for as little as I've been doing. I had the #46 ranked swim out of 239 men.

T1 went pretty well and I was in and out in 42 seconds (#8 out of 239). Got on the bike and tried to stay relaxed until I got into the groove. Wind was pretty strong, which combined with a hilly course with lots of winding turns, was sure to make for a slow bike split. Unfortunately, I never got into that groove and just felt pretty flat for the whole ride without a lot of zip. Going back and looking at my wattage numbers post race, I was a good 20-25 watts below where I should normally be for a sprint. Oh well. The bike course, being hilly and winding, is quite fun. I've grown a fondness for this route and train on it regularly, so I was really familiar with the course and knew exactly where to punch, where I could push my limits, and where to be cautious. It's only a 13.8 mile course, but there are a few challening parts. For instance, I was already hurting pretty good when I came up to the aptly named "Nice hill" at mile 6. Nice hill is short, but really difficult. It took me holding 400 watts to get up over it at only about 10 mph. For reference, I can do a 26+ mph time trial holding only 255 watts on a flat course. If those numbers don't mean anything to you because you aren't a wattage dork like me, the punchline is this: it's real steep and takes a lot out of you. Coming up the backside on the way in isn't as bad, but still hurts. I chugged along doing my best and averaged a pretty slow 22.4 mph, but because of the course difficulty, was good enough for the #7 bike split out of 239. I know, I should be happy with that, but I'd just be happier if I felt like I was on my game for that ride. That's what not training for 3 weeks will do to ya!!

T2 also went well and I was in and out in 38 seconds, #17 out of 239. Started the run, and I knew this was where I was going to do the worst. Anytime I take gaps in training, the sport that suffers the most is my run. I can go a while without swimming or riding and still do okay, but I just crumble without continual run training. First mile did NOT feel good, but time was better than expected. Slowed a bit for the 2nd mile, but was able to pick it back up again for the 3rd mile. The run is advertised as flat, giving the impression it's a fast course, but I thought this was a really difficult run. High winds coming off the lake, which I know it's not possible but it seemed like the wind was in my face for 75% of the time. It's also not really that flat...there is an ever-present incline or decline, even if slight. And lastly, there are lots of turns and turnarounds. The wind, inclines, and turning all make for a challenging run. I did okay for having such a long training layoff: 22nd out of 239.

Overall, I placed 10th out of 239 with a time of 1:04:45 (but I think the #1 guy was racing as an Elite even though lumped in the Age Group results, which means I'd bump up 1 spot technically). I really expected to do a lot worse, so I guess I really have no complaints. Post race, I felt good physically and mentally about my effort, it just wasn't quite as pleasing as I'd like because of feeling flat. What I was most happy about was that I felt smooth and comfortable on the swim, and did a respectable time for me. But after having done 2 races now in my new age group, I HATE racing in the 35-39 AG!! (Sidebar: my triathlon race age is my age on Dec 31 of 2009, which makes me 35 in tri years.) These guys are just way too fast. I was 4th out of 29 in AG. But as much as I say I hate it, I actually like it. Racing against these fast guys all the time will make me better, and I like that.

Lone Star Half Iron Race Report

2009-04-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Brought the family down with me to Galveston for the Lone Star Half Iron-distance race so that we could enjoy Moody Gardens and also for Brady to run the Kids 1K on Sat. He was excited for his first big race. We spent Sat. at the aquarium, which the boys loved. Then Brady ran his race in the afternoon. He did a 6:20 for the 1K (10:11 min/mi pace). I was pretty impressed and he didn't walk not even once. First thing he said after the race was "Can we race again?" He carried around his medal all day and was quite proud. So were Melanie and I. Post race we went to the aviation museum, but the boys were so tired I'm not sure they got as much out of it as they normally would if not so tired. Okay, onto more race specific stuff...

This race was a comedy of errors in the truest sense! I won't elaborate all the things that happened in the 2 weeks leading up to the race, but I wasn't feeling too well and wasn't feeling it on race day. But that's way too long a story to get into, so I'll save it. Onto the race. I wasn't able to get in a warm-up on the swim, but I at least wanted to get used to the salt water and the coldness...I have a really hard time catching my breath when the water is so cold. They said water was 62 degrees. Yikes! Wave starts were delayed so they could reset the turn buoys after the last wave of the quarter iron went off. Took much longer than anticipated, but finally the first wave went after around a 20 min delay or so. I was in the second wave and as we entered the water, I was getting everything set and trying to get to the start line when the announcer started counting down from 10. Oh crap!! That snuck up on me. I franticallly try and get toward the start line but only made it to the very back of the wave when the gun went off. Starting back there was a little annoying, but I [unfortunately] can't blame my crappy swim time on it. It probably only cost me 20-30 seconds max. No big deal in the grand scheme of things. Finally got out of the water...I felt really fresh and my time showed why. My swim split was 39+ minutes, which was just awful. I don't have it broken down by gender, so including both males and females, I was the #235 swim split out of 638. Yuck! Oh well, couldn't do anything about it at that point.

Not even a mile into the bike I hear the horrible sound of one's own water bottle skidding across the pavement behind him. I look back and sure enough, one of my bottles of Infinit had already ejected. I checked my 2nd bottle and to my shock, it was gone too but nowhere to be seen. Great, lost all my bike calories not even a mile into the ride. There is a long line of halfers behind me, so I pull over and stop to wait for a gap to cross back across the road. The quarter iron racers are coming into T2 from the opposite side, so I had to wait for a gap in them too before I could turn around. I headed back up for a block and got off my bike to get my bottle that had skidded into the grass. Sure, going back and getting it cost me a lot of time, but it would have cost me a lot more if I didn't have at least some partial resemblence of my nutrition plan in place. It was well worth the time penalty. And speaking of time penalty, I am fully aware that I deserve a 2:00 for not being able to find the first bottle that became dislodged. But time was ticking so I gave up looking for it. Anyway, back onto the bike. I developed an alternative nutrition strategy on the fly. I was going to space out my 1 bottle twice as long as planned and fill in those gaps using Gatorade Endurance handed out on the course. The problem is that Gat. E has fewer calories and less salt than my Infinit and it doesn't sit well in my stomach at all. It wasn't optimal, but would have to do. Then I realized another problem. If my bigger bottle ejected, the skinnier Gat. bottle surely wouldn't last. So what I did was hold the gatorade bottle in my hand with it resting on the aero bars. Over bumpy parts I had to reach my left hand back to secure my behind the saddle Infinit bottle and hold the gatorate with my right hand and steer my aero bar with my right forearm. It was dicey to the say the least, but I only had to do this in 5-7 spots max. It was doable and totally worth getting the calories. Bike pace is going okay at this point, but not stellar, then at the halfway point of the bike I go to downshift and my rear derailleur cable snaps. I drop into my 53/11 gear for the rest of the race. At this point, I actually chuckled out loud because my wife and I had been joking in the week leading up to the race about how things kept going wrong and we kept asking what's next. I just thought "she's going to love this story!!" Oh well, couldn't change the fact that the cable snapped and couldn't magically repair it, so no point in whining about it; just had to figure out a way to work around it. I considered different options but what I ultimately came up with was to increase my wattage so that I didn't have to mash at too low of cadence. The advantages were that 1) I'd get done faster and 2) well...can't think of another. I considered downshifing to my small chainring, but was worried I'd be spinning out or worse yet, have that cable snap. So I opted to stay in the 53/11 the rest of the way. I went really hard on the way in, with a slight tailwind. My cadence was still really low because I was in my 53/11 the whole time (around 60-70 rpm), but it was at least higher than if I went slower. I knew I would likely blow up for the run, but seemed like the only option at the time. Oh, and it was really fun doing my bottle balancing act on the rough parts while mashing out at 60 rpm. Get close to T2 and thinking "thank goodness." My legs are complete toast, feel like I'm going to vomit from the gatorade, but hey, I made it in and was happy with my bike split time all things considered. A new personal best bike time for the 56 miles of 2:22 (23.6 mph). That was the #31 bike split out of 638.

Run course was 4 loops which was really nice. I got to see my wife and 2 boys frequently and even at multiple spots on the same loop. And with such a small loop (~3.25 miles), it was packed with spectators. I really liked it. But my legs were cramping from my 28 mile mashfest and my stomach felt just awful from the Gatorade on the first lap, so I took it very easy. I was okay with this. I decided to do the entire first lap like this and re-evaluate strategy starting the second lap. I very quickly sucked down some of my Infinit run formula from my fuel belt and even took some extra salt tabs to get rid of the cramps. The calories and salt helped as I started to feel slightly better after the first lap. I decided that pushing it and bonking wasn't a good option, so I stayed disciplined and went easy for the 2nd lap too. At the halfway point, I was at 55 min into the run and starting to feel better. I felt like at this point, my risk of blowing up and DNFing was low, so just freakin' go for it. I focused really hard and went for it. My Polar shoe sensor fell off during the run (I told you it was a comedy of errors) but pace didn't matter. Just had to go as hard as possible regardless of what that number on my watch said. I ran the 2nd half in 48 min for a negative split, which I was quite pleased with once I got into the groove for the last half. I ended up with a 1:43, which was #63 out of 638.

My finish time was a 4:49, a new personal best (previous best was 5:05). I'm very happy with this since it's so early in the year and I haven't trained a whole lot...really only started up in January after a 5 month layoff. Overall, I placed #46 out of 638, #42 out of 412 among the men, and #11 out of 84 in my Age Group (which is now 35-39 this year).

I was very proud of this race not just because of my time(s), but because I had a good day of being mentally tough overcoming obstacles (pre- and during race) and being able to mentally push myself to suffer on the run (one of my weaknesses). I can't ask for much more than that.

Brady's first soccer game

2009-03-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

Brady wanted to play soccer this year so we signed him up for a league at the YMCA. They had a few practices and clearly his favorite part is running, but we weren't sure how the actual game would go. Last weekend, March 21st, was their first one!

Getting on the shin guards, getting game face on

They had a scrimmage at practice the week of the game and Brady did well. The only thing he didn't do very well was kick the ball in the correct direction. But given his newness to the game, we were pretty impressed with how well he did. At this age, the kids who can outrun the "pack" are the ones who get to touch the ball the most, so it was going to be interesting to see how he did (he is one of the faster kids). His friend, John Michael (the son of one of our friends, Elizabeth, who also happens to be a marathoner) is really fast and scored a lot at scrimmage, so it was going to be fun watching he and Brady run around and try and score goals. Now comes game time...

Brady before the game. Goofball.

The morning of the game, I asked him if he remembered which direction he was supposed to kick it toward before he kicked it and he said yes. So I asked him why he would kick the wrong way sometimes and he said, "I don't care where it goes, I just want to run faster than everyone else to get to the ball." So I asked him to try and kick it to the right direction and put it into the goal during the game and he said, "Okay, dad." That was easy!

We would be proud of Brady no matter how well (or bad) he did, but he did such an amazing job! We were so proud of him. He scored the first 3 goals of the game before getting subbed out in the first half. He came back in at the end of the 2nd half and got one more. He scored 4 of his team's 6 goals (or maybe it was 5 of 7). John Michael and a boy named Nicholas got the other 2. What I was really proud of was how well he grasped what he was supposed to do. When the other team would breakaway to score a goal, I would yell for him to go get the ball and not let them score. On 3 breakaways, he ran down the kid dribbling the ball and kicked it away! How awesome is that? (Of course, I'm leaving out the part when he leaned down and stopped it with his hand! But he only did it once.) The best one was when Brady was the absolute furthest away from the ball (standing by the goal he's supposed to score in) and the other team got a breakaway. All his teammates didn't know what to do, and really, neither did Brady because they broke away so fast. I yelled for him to stop them from scoring and I've never seen that kid run so fast!! He went from the back of the group to all the way in the front and kicked the ball away from crossing the line at the very last second. Wow! :)

Trying to breakaway for a score

Goal #3 (I think?)

Goal #4

Riding the pine in the 2nd half

"Good game"

It was a really proud moment, especially hearing all the comments, even if just jokingly. Some of the ones I remember the most (but there were others):

"Wow, Brady is a ringer!"
"I haven't seen a kid that fast. Is he running track already?"
One parent came up to me after the game and shook my hand and simply said, "Congratulations. He's phenomenal."
On the other sideline Melanie heard the parents from the other team saying "Oh my gosh, there's no way we could stop that #5."

Anyway, all we want for Brady is for him to have fun and learn some basic skills...all this was just a nice bonus.

One of Brady's biggest fans enjoying the game

The day after his game, we decided we were going to do some run 'training.' I signed him up for a 1K run the day before my race in Galveston, so I asked him if he wanted to train with dad to get ready for it. Asking him if he wants to run, are you kidding me? Of course! So we ran a half mile on Sunday together and I tried to teach him about pacing himself so that he doesn't get so tired that he can't finish. He did awesome again and picked up the concept really fast. He ran the half mile about 14 min/mile pace, so not too bad. But there were 3 funny moments that stood out to me.

The first was when we were running on the sidewalk and were about to cross the entrance to the elementary school parking lot (across from our house), a place where he knows there are moving cars (on weekdays, anyway). As we're running, he slammed on the brakes right at the sidewalk edge and looked up at me as if asking "Can I cross this daddy?" I came back and told him that if he's with me and I say it's okay, he can go across it. The second funny thing was when we got to the halfway point and turned around into a very strong wind. As soon as we turned around, he said "Oh man. It's slowing me down dad." I chuckled and told him to just keep trying. He did, all the way to the end. The third thing was when we got back into the house. He fell on the floor on his back, sprawled out as if doing a snow angel and said "Man, I'm tired."

What a great weekend! I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

Great moments in Dad history

2009-03-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to get this up for quite some time now and am finally getting around to it. At his school/daycare, Brady got to make a "My Wish" project (with teacher's help) for his birthday. Here is what he wanted for his birthday...how cool is that?

The Cowtown Half Marathon

2009-03-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

I signed up for this just to make it an enjoyable, fun, up-tempo training run. I knew the weather was going to not be good, but when I woke up and saw wind chill in the 20's and north winds at 23 mph, I really was not looking forward to getting out there. I bundled up to the hilt (by runner's standards), but still got cold just even walking from the front door to the car.

Parking was a nightmare, and the place I wanted to park wasn't accessible (street closure), so had to find a new place on the fly. I waited in the car as long as possible, then went to the starting line. I wore running tights, 2 base layer shirts, jacket, 2 pairs of gloves, and a facemask. I was freezing still! My objective for this was to go easy for 2 miles as a warm-up, run hard for 10, then take the last mile easy. My primary goal was to not get hurt as I've been having some hamstring and iliotibial band issues lately.

Gun went off and first 2 miles were straight into the wind. Holy crap was it cold. But after the initial shock of those, the course turned and we had crosswind or tailwind for the rest of the day. At that point, I had to start shedding layers. It's a pain in the butt to carry all that crap for the entire race, but I was sure glad I had dressed that warm for the first couple of miles. [Note: marathoners and half marathoners usually wear old, disposable garments to just toss at the stations when they get too hot. I wore my nicer, non-throwaway stuff which was warmer, which is why I had to hang onto it for the race.]

Everything went well and I ran pretty good during the 10-mile stretch I wanted to work hard. Given where I am in my training, I figured a 1:40-1:50 range was feasible. I ran 1:41 and change (pretty much a 1:42) so I was happy. My knee and hamstring were starting to hurt on that last cool down mile, so good thing I didn't push at the end. It was a fun race, fast course, and if weather cooperates, I'd like to keep doing this race year-to-year. They have a very cool medal that can combine with the medals for years 2010-2013 to form a huge star; I'd like to get all 5 if possible.

Training is going well, just need to stay consistent and focus on Lone Star.

Brady's 4th Birthday Party

2009-02-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

Oh man, this was one of the most fun things I've been able to do as a dad so far. We held the party at a large building that has all kinds of air slides and bounce pits. Normally, Brady is pretty cautious when it comes to things like this so I didn't know how well he'd take to it. As soon as we opened the door, he bolted with his friends like a madman set loose from prison...it was a joy to watch them play with so much enthusiasm.

There was a separate play area for the "littler ones" but Alex wanted nothing to do with that...he went onto the big kids stuff with passion! One of the most fun parts of the day was playing in the bounce pit with Alex. He would stand up and all I had to do was bounce to knock him off balance...he'd fall over and laugh so hard that he could hardly breathe. Then he'd get up, stand still, and wait for me to do it again...over and over! My face hurt from laughing so much. I also took him up the biggest slide in the place and he liked that too. His favorite was probably the dinsosaur slide, which he did repeatedly. He could climb and slide down that one all on his own.

Brady was bouncing all over the place. He would do the big slide, then go to the bounce pit, then hop over the long obstacle course with climbing wall. All in all, it was an awesome day and lots of Brady's friends from school showed up.

Being a parent shouldn't be this much fun!

Lake Benbrook Half Marathon

2009-02-10T11:27:00.000-08:00

Oh man, talk about worried. Here's how all this came about...

My friend Elizabeth talked me into signing up for the Benbrook Half on Jan 31st a long time ago. I figured why not, it would help get me motivated to start back with run training again. Well, on Jan 30th, I realized I still hadn't done squat for training! I had only ran a total of 17 miles for the entire month of January, and to top it off, here was the course description I was given for Benbrook: "the hills start before mile 1 and end after mile 12." Needless to say, I was a bit worried about just jumping in and running this.

My goals (in progressive order so that I must complete the first to move onto the next):
1. Don't get injured
2. Finish...seriously
3. Finish without walking
4. Negative split (2nd half faster than first half)

The race is great; where else can you do a half marathon for only $15? The views and scenery were really nice and they weren't kidding about the hills. One of the hilliest runs I've ever done. But I'm happy to say that despite my lack of training, I accomplished all 4 of my goals. The best part is that I actually am back running again since then and am really having fun doing it. My time was a good 20+ minutes slower than my PR and placing was not good, but c'est la vie. I had a lot of fun at this race.

Damn fire ants!

2009-01-13T19:41:00.001-08:00

Well, it was inevitable living in TX. Brady and Alex got their first experience with fire ants the other day. Brady got stung 6-7 times before we got them off. The frustrating part was that it was dark outside so we had to run in the house to see to get them off. Then had fire ants on the floor, so while Melanie was comforting Brady, I was trying to kill as many as I could between my fingers. One got on Alex's shoe and crawled up his leg. He only got stung once, luckily. It was pretty traumatic for Brady, but once he got over the shock of it all, he sucked it up pretty good even though it stung for most of the rest of the night. It's looking good now after a few days so both boys are back to normal. Well, sort of...colds and allergies kicking in!

A look back at 2008. A look ahead to 2009.

2008-12-30T12:04:00.001-08:00

2008 was a memorable year; mostly good, some bad. There just isn't enough space to include everything, like birthdays, trick or treating with the boys, etc. But below is a recap of some of the events that stood out to me in 2008.

March
I decided to try and get some sponsor support for racing. Not because I think I am a high caliber athlete, but because I simply wanted to alleviate some of the costs associated with racing. I sought support only from the businesses I prefer, and luckily, they were all willing to help me out in some capacity: Infinit Nutrition, Personal Best Nutrition, and most of all, Schlegel Bicycles.

May
I graduated from OSU with my Ph.D. It was a long road, and difficult, but the satisfaction of finishing was well worth it.

Another highlight I'll never forget was the first airshow I got to take my boys, Alex and Brady, to go see. I posted a blog about it previously here.

June
After having sporadic training for the whole year, I finally had an opportunity to train consistently for a full month. It was a great month, and I really surprised myself when I took 5th place at the Rt. 66 sprint triathlon. I was the first Oklahoman across the line, which made me the state champ by default. It was a thrilling experience, which I blogged about here. Unfortunately, this was the only decent block of training I was able to do for the remainder of 2008; the rest of the season was essentually a bust.

July
One of my dissertation chapters was published in a prestigious journal, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. I was elated. What was so unexpected was the media coverage that ensued. I was lucky enough to give radio interviews for NPR, CBC (fast forward to 15:25), and BBC. Our paper was also featured by Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Science News magazine, New Scientist magazine, Chronicles of Higher Education, National Science Foundation, Nature, Science, and popular news outlets including The New York Times, Fox News, and newspapers in Germany, UK, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, South Africa, India, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, China, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. It was a very surreal, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Also in July, I visited Chris and Justin Wolfe down in Austin, TX. What a blast. We rode 250.6 miles of massive hills in just 4 days, which included 2 Time Trials. The 4 day training fest was capped off with a 26.1 mph TT...I was real happy with that for as dead as my legs were. I ended up getting in 306 miles that week. Biggest block of riding I've ever done. Some bad memories, but lots and lots of good memories from that trip.

August
This was a busy month! I started my post doc position at TCU officially on August 1, so we put our house up for sale in Edmond, OK. Fortunately, it sold in just 2 weeks. Unfortunately, we had to close on it in 2 weeks, which gave us a small window to buy a house in Fort Worth. We house hunted constantly and aggressively, and luckily, we found a house we liked and were ready to move into within the 2 weeks. The horrible housing market meant that we got one heck of a good deal on a house we never thought we'd ever be able to have. It's much bigger than we need, but we love it and the price was low, so we took it. Because life was so crazy, I cancelled all my remaining races for August and September. Training stopped...completely.

September
We moved into our new house on Sept. 1. The moving process was horrible for many, many, many reasons and we racked up substantial cost from the move. But life was good. We loved our house, we love the area, and I love my job.

October
I still hadn't trained since late July, so I had to cancel racing at Nationals in Las Vegas. I was disappointed, but everything else in life was going well (but hectic). Did I mention that I absolutely love my job? :-)

November
After the move, Melanie continued to work for her employer in OKC. But this relationship was wearing out, so she looked for a new job. Talk about stressful. What if she didn't get one? What if the pay was much less? So many unknowns, but thankfully, she found a job. Most importantly, it was the job the liked the most. She absolutely loves working there now. With both our jobs going so well, our house, and loving the area, everything was shaping up to be nearly perfect. Oh, except for training...still hadn't done that since late July!!

December
Things were finally settling down with being so busy, so started training again. I also found out that I made 'Elite' ranking for the South Midwest region (OK, TX, AR, and LA). This was a fluke since I only had one good race, and I understand that, but I'm proud and happy anyway. This motivated me to get back to training after a 4 month layoff. I was ranked #4 out of 313 in the 30-34 AG, and #32 out of 2,010 overall. Again, that is skewed since my Rt. 66 race carried all the weight, but I'm still happy about it.

Just as I get back into training again, I was hit with a nasty finger infection. They were unable to culture it, but it was probably staph. While visiting family in MO, I ended up having to go the hospital for a few days and have surgery to clean it out. Not fun to be in the hospital on Christmas morning, but what can you do? Fortunately, looks like it's clean now and healing up. The downside is that it has to close up on its own (i.e., no stitches), so it's open but covered. As long as it's open, I can get it wet. That means no swimming and limited running and riding (sweat). One step forward, two steps back. Not the way I would have liked to have ended 2008, but could have been worse.

Overall, it was a good year. But I realized some areas that I wasn't happy with, so I've established resolutions for 2009 (I think of them more as goals or objectives).

More pics of Melanie and the boys. She took so many good pictures of me with the boys, but I realized I had very few of her with the boys. I want to get more of her with them.
Balance time budget. It's too easy to get focused on one area (usually work). Even when work is overwhelming, I need to make more time for family time and training time.
Chip away at house stuff. We've got a lot of things we want to do to the house (mostly painting rooms, ceiling fans, etc). It's a lot, but instead of looking at everything, I just want to pick a small task and finish it every couple of weeks.
Eliminate major gaps of no training. Looking back at my training log, it was scary how little I actually trained this year. I mean I had entire months with 0 yards swam, 0 miles ran, and only a few miles ridden. Once I start skipping workouts for a few days, it's easy for me to downward spiral and blow it off completely (see #2 above). I don't have to do a lot of training weekly, but I just have to do something. At least 2 swims, 2 runs, and 2 rides a week. I don't care if it's only 5 hours of training per week. 4 weeks of 5 hours is better than 4 weeks with 0 hours. Just be consistent.
Keep blog and website at least moderately up-to-date. Once a month at the minimum seems feasible.

Route 66 Sprint Triathlon -- Oklahoma State Championship

2008-07-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

This race took place on May 31, the day before the Oly distance race. It's taken me a while to get to finally posting this, but this was a great experience so I definitely wanted to capture it. Here it goes.

This was just 2 weeks after I had a very poor showing at Four States Triathlon, which was the Regional Sprint Championship. I was pissed after Four States...I knew I could do better, but then again, I had only trained for 2 weeks (and sporadic at that) after taking 5 weeks off, so I knew I shouldn't have hoped for more than I did. So I really pounded myself hard in training for the 2 weeks between Four States and Rt. 66. I figured being this out of shape, the fitness gains were more important than being well-rested. I did back off the few days before the race to make sure I wasn't completely trashed. But I didn't exactly have high hopes because of this, but felt very positive mentally and physically. This will sound like complete BS after you get to the end of this race report, but the night before the race I had trouble sleeping because I kept picturing myself coming out of T2 and starting the run in either first or second place. But then I'd tell myself, "Be realistic. You've never been that high up before in a big race, so don't aim too high." I didn't want to be disappointed if I didn't end up that high, so I checked myself back down to reality and said that if I were in the top 10 starting the run I'd be very happy, and even content if just the top 15.

So race day morning, here's the first of the weekend's two races for me. The sprint on Sat., the OK State Championship! I wanted to do well. Did my warm up and then got ready to go out and start the race. The swim went horrible. It was a good 150 meters too long!! Longer than expected swims do not bode well for someone like me that doesn't swim toward the front of the pack. In addition to being way long, the chop was ridiculous and several people got pulled from the water and were DNF. It was actually a scary situation from what I heard after the race. People were really panicking and there was a strong sense of urgency from the volunteers to get to these people before drownings occurred. Fortunately, we have the best race directors and volunteers in Tri-OKC members, so the race was safe for everyone involved. I got out of the water and saw my split and thought what the hell went wrong!!! But I figured if I was that slow, then maybe everyone else was too. I was 27th out of 164, which may sound good, but I'm so sick and tired of not being in the front after the swim!!

I hopped on the bike and got going. I tried a few new things for this race. First, I changed up my breakfast routine and I think I had more energy come race time. Second, I warmed up for 30 minutes on the bike since I always feel so tight starting that bike leg--that helped a lot. Third, instead of hitting a wattage target right off the bat, I worked into it. My goal was to hold 220 watts (my FTP is 230w). So I started out at 210, then 215, then within a few minutes I was up to 220. What a difference! I felt so loose and comfortable and I was passing people like they were standing still. By the time I got about 3 miles into the bike course, I could see the lead group up ahead of me. I kept thinking, "no way...that can't be them...I'm closing on them so fast that it wasn't possible." I caught the lead group of 5 right at the turnaround. Then we turned around into an absolutely atrocious wind and this was where I decided to make my move. I upped my watts into the 230 range and even let it go into the 250w for spurts. I made huge ground on people. Passed the 5th place guy, then the 4th, then I was hauling in the 3rd. Just ahead of me was the 2nd place guy and we only had about 1.5-2 miles left, so not a lot of time to make up ground. I knew I was having a great bike split because it was at this point that I threw up from going so hard. I was having the race of my life! I caught the 2nd place guy and then could see 1st place right in front of me. I had to remind myself that this wasn't some piddly little race, this was the State Championship and I was doing something special (for me). I caught everyone but the 1st place guy and felt awesome. I really wanted to come into T2 in first place, but I couldn't quite catch Michael White. Coming into T2 was the best part of the race for me, and a memory that I will probably never forget. I remember as I was coming in, I wondered what the reaction was going to be...I mean this was the State Championship and there were some really fast dudes there!! As I came in, I wanted to pay special attention to everyone I saw and see the reaction of people who I knew. I remember seeing just about everyone's jaw drop to the ground! It brought a smile to my face and a special sense of "you can do this!" I'll be damned: I had the #1 bike split out of 164 people at the State Championship! On one hand, I couldn't believe it. On the other, I knew I was capable of something like this some day, but it didn't seem real for it to actually be happening.

I came out of T2 ~20 seconds out of first. That is an amazing feeling and does wonders for sucking up the immense amount of pain and pushing on because you believe in yourself. I knew Michael was from KS (the guy in 1st place), so I wanted to at least be the first OK finisher. Pretty soon into the run, Tristan passed me and I knew he was from KS too. He was flying so I knew I couldn't stay with him. Right before the turnaround, this guy from MD caught me and he was flying too (I had heard about how good he was, so knew he was going to get me eventually). I knew Rick Rosales was closing in on me fast, so I ran with everything I could to try and stay ahead of him. Rick caught me with about 3/4 of a mile left and I stayed on his heels for a while. My thought was that I knew I wouldn't stay with him--he's a tremendous runner and even with my newfound confidence, I couldn't physically match that--but I knew Tommy Smith (#26 ranked triathlete in the South Midwest Region) was trying to come up on me, so by staying with Rick for as long as possible, I could hold off Tommy. It worked and I held on. I only had the 19th ranked run out of 164, but that was all I could muster after throwing down a monster bike split like that. I did what I could. But since Rick is from TX, that made me the first Oklahoman across the line!! I took 5th overall out of 164, 1st in age group out of 22, and I had the #1 bike split on the day. Because I was the first Oklahoma finisher across the line, by default, I was the 2008 Oklahoma State Champion! Holy $%!&!! Coming around the turn to come home to the finish line, I had the biggest damn grin on my face. I wanted to give a fist pump, but refrained since I was back in 5th place and not the overall winner. But damn, was I happy.

After the race was such a whirlwind...so many people came up to me in total disbelief about the race I had, and to be honest, I was in complete shock. I didn't know I had it in me, at least not at this point in the season. But I had a big physical and mental breakthrough...I can compete at a high level. I told myself before the race: no excuses, you're better than you think you are, just race like you know you can.

Here is a pic of me with my State Champ plaque and Brady holding up my 1st place Age Group award. What a great day!

But still one more day of racing left...

Route 66 Olympic Distance Triathlon race report

2008-07-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

This is being posted late due to being very busy, but this race was the day after the sprint on June 1, 2008.

Okay, onto the race on Sunday. Frankly, I didn't care what happened because I was still on Cloud 9 from the sprint on Sat. I hurt my shoulder the week before the race, and it was pretty sore on Sunday morning, so I almost decided not to race because I didn't want to have to go through the pain during the swim. Then thought, why not? My race goals were to avoid injury on the swim, hammer the bike, then walk the run if I had to. I had put out so much energy on Sat. that I was just freakin' exhausted. But then as we're prepping before the race, Buzz is on the mic naming off notables who are racing in the race. Now I'm a realist and completely understand that there are at least 2 dozen triathletes in OK that are faster than me--I'm not kidding myself thinking I'm better than I really am--but I can't tell you how amazing it is for someone like me, who's always been average, to hear "Kris Karsten, 2008 Oklahoma State Champion." Damn, it was an awesome feeling. So I decided to just give it everything I had. Weather was perfect...low wind (by OK standards), smoothish lake, cloud cover to keep the sun away on the run.

I start the swim and feel very tired. I coast for the first 500 meters or so and then pick it up after my shoulder loosened up a bit. I started passing a lot of people toward the end, but once again, swimming is my downfall. I swam a pretty slow 28:11 and came out of the water in 34th place out of 143.

I got out of T1 and onto the bike. My goal was to start out at 200 watts and ramp up from there. Worked perfectly again, just like on Sat. I hammered as hard as I possibly could, but I just didn't have it quite in me and I started slacking a little bit at the end. I did a 1:04:40 and had the 7th fastest bike split out of 143. I was content with this since my legs were already toast before I even started the race!

I thought I'd fall over from my legs giving out when I headed out of T2, but then the competitive juices started flowing. There were a few people ahead of me that I knew I could run down, so I gritted my teeth, sucked it up, and ran as best I could. I ended up not getting passed by anyone on the run and had a decent split, especially considering how tired I was. I ran a 42:44 for the 16th fastest run out of 143.

Overall, pretty good race and I'll take it. I met all my goals for the day and had a new PR of 2:17:04. I know I could have had a really great day if I could swim faster and wasn't so tired, so I didn't have any complaints. I finished 10th overall out of 143 (Pro, Daniel Agnew excluded from results) and finished 3rd out of 28 in a very competitive age group.

Polar RS800sd product review: update

2008-06-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, used my new running computer in a race for the first time this past weekend at the Rt 66 Sprint and Rt. 66 Oly (race reports coming soon). It didn't quite work out as picture-perfect as I thought it would. First, my old 625 would carry a HR signal while swimming. While I don't really monitor or care what my HR is during the swim, it is nice to download the data post-race and reflect back on how HR relates to pace and perceived effort. But really the bigger problem is that if you start the RS800 and it loses the signal, it doesn't automatically pick up the HR or footpod signal later on. So when you get out of the water, if you want it to pick up your HR, you have to stop the timer all the way back to the main screen and then restart everything. On the race Sat., I didn't have HR to watch on the bike. When I came into T2, I also found out that I had to do a stop-restart to also get it to find the footpod. This takes time and also creates gaps in your overall race time that you are trying to keep track of on your watch. I think there has to be a way around this, but I'll have to do some experimenting.

Second, I found that my calibration was reading a little short during the race. I was running a faster pace than my watch said I was. Although it's better than the 625 in having less fluctuation with changing speed, it seems as though I may need to take the time to calibrate it a little better during training to use on race day. I think this can be done quite easily though. I should be able to go run known 5K and 10K courses at race pace and determine the calibration factor for those. Then I can adjust the race day calibration number to whatever numbers I get from those and accuracy should improve.

It was nice to have cadence on the run portion of both races. Despite this, I still found it hard to lower my cadence and increase my stride length. My mind kept telling me to slow turnover a bit and get legs longer, buy my legs kept saying no, I don't want to. I kept wanting to run at a cadence of 92-94 with choppier steps. I think I just need to practice my speedwork more at a cadence of 90 to build that pattern into my neuro-muscular memory. More training sessions this year will improve that.

The good news is that I think these kinks are able to be fixed, I just have to figure out a good way to get around them. I'll probably post more updates on this later in the year as I use it more often.

Product review: Polar RS800sd running computer

2008-05-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

Well, at Four States Triathlon last week my Polar s625x crapped out on me. Besides a power meter for my bike, that was one of the best investments I've made in my training/racing. Despite all its advantages, it had many shortcomings. That's why when the Polar RS800sd came out last year, I was all excited because it kept all the things I liked about my 625 and fixed most of the things I didn't like. The downside was an exorbatant price tag. I had saved up for this for a while, but never was ready to pull the trigger. But when my 625 bit the dust last week, I figured why not. So I ordered one from Schlegel's bike shop and was ready to try it out.

A power meter on the bike is a large reason why I've been competitive at cycling this year despite my lack of training. A running computer is basically the equivalent: I can track my pace in real time, download all my data to TrainingPeaks software, and design my training and racing around estimates of lactate threshold, VO2max, etc. Very useful and effective. But as much as I loved my 625, I disliked many things:
1. Pace and distance would sometimes be way off and difficult to calibrate.
2. Pace/distance measurements fluctuated greatly depending on whether I was running an easy pace or a fast pace.
3. Altitude measurements always drifted to negative and were inaccurate
4. Pace was updated only in 5 second intervals so there was a pretty significant time lag.
5. The footpod was large and bulky
6. The footpod required a 2-3 sec start-up time which made it difficult to use in a triathlon since every single second counts in transition.
7. The wrist unit was like a small phone book on my wrist.

I've now had a handful of runs with my new RS800 and I have fallen in love with running all over again! Here is what I like about it so far, but I still have many more facets to discover as I use it more often.
1. Very slim on the wrist; fits like a normal watch.
2. Pace is updated in 1 sec. increments, so you can react without time lag.
3. Altitude feature doesn't drift anymore.
4. Pace/distance doesn't fluctuate that much when comparing my 8 min/mile pace to my 5:30 min/mile pace.
5. Footpod is small, compact, and lightweight.
6. Footpod turns on automatically. Now I can wear it in races and when I put my shoes on in T2, all I have to worry about is to start running...it kicks in automatically.
7. Pace/distance is very easy to calibrate. You can even change it on the fly...if you run 1 exact mile, you can quickly go the menu and put the exact distance in and it will recalibrate automatically. After trying this out a few times, I now have it to where it's accurate to within 0.01 miles regardless of whether I'm on an easy jog or doing sprint intervals.
8. It has run cadence!! This is huge...I'll talk more about it later.
9. Works seamlessly with TrainingPeaks so that I can calculate rTSS, ATL, CTL, and TSB for running with ease.

There are a few things I don't like, namely that you can only display 3 lines of info on the screen at a time. There are lots of things I like to keep track of, including heart rate, pace, cadence, distance, lap split, and stopwatch split (total time). But I have figured a way around this. You can customize each screen, so what I will do for races is have one screen with pace/distance/cadence and another screen with HR/lap split/stopwatch split. You can easily toggle between the screens with the push of a button, so I'll mostly keep it on the pace screen and flip to the HR screen when I want. Very easy to do during a race.

For biomechanical reasons that I won't get into here, it is often optimal (for most body types) to run with a cadence of 90 or so, and nearly all elite runners do this. I've always tried to stay around this number, but have had to rely on sporadic spot checks: I count my right arm swings for 20 seconds and multiply by 3 to get the number of same-sided steps per minute (my cadence). Now, all I have to do is look down and see where I am. Turns out I am really good about running at a cadence of 90 most of the time. But what I found was that during my hard, speedwork, I actually run with too high of cadence. Your overall speed is an interaction between stride length and cadence such that speed = stide length x cadence. If you increase your cadence and keep stride constant, speed increases, or vice versa. But since a cadence of 90 is generally preferred, this means the primary way to change speed is to manipulate stride length. If I run a marathon, I try to run a cadence of 90 with shorter stride lengths (too long of stride lenghts, and too much speed, means I'll bonk before I finish). If I run a 5K, I *should* run a cadence of 90 but increase stride length to the maximum that I can hold for that distance. What I found out after only one session with my RS800 was that during my speed work, I was increasing my cadence too much and not lengthening my stride enough. Once I identified this, I slowed my cadence back down to 90 and increased stride length by adjusting my arm positioning (I've already rambled too long, so won't go into how to do this, but trust me, you can manipulate stride length purely by adjusting arm carry). Once I made the adjustment of doing my speedwork with a cadence of 90 but longer stride length, my overall speed was way higher than I'd been running for my past interval sessions!! Eureka! Analyzing training data to improve performance at its finest.

Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase. The price tag is just absolutely ridiculous, but in my opinion, if you are going to drop a lot of money, it's best to drop it on things that help you train more than flashy items used for racing only. The logic is that training is what really makes you faster. This was definitely a good investment for training. I'll give it its first race performance this weekend at the Rt. 66 Sprint and Rt. 66 Oly. I'm still not in great running shape for the year yet, but I'm anxious to see how/if it helps me during the 5K on the sprint and the 10K for the Oly. I'll be watching cadence and pace like a hawk to push myself to the limit that I can withstand.

Airshow at Tinker AFB

2008-05-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

I've loved going to airshows since I was a kid. Now that I've got 2 kids of my own, I got my first experience of going to an airshow as a dad. We packed up the double stroller, a couple of folding chairs, and Melanie and I headed out to the airshow with Brady and Alex last Saturday. This was going to be an interesting experiment: we were skipping naps for both the boys and it was hot and humid. We were expecting to have some cranky boys on our hands for most of the day.

Took a while to get in since it was on an AFB, and had to funnel into only one security checkpoint. Once we made it through, we started looking at all the planes. Brady is at that age where he thinks big things are cool, from a distance, but up close gets a little scared. I asked him if he wanted to go into the C-130, but he said no. I told him I wanted to go walk through a C-130 but that I was a little nervous, so I asked him if he'd go with me to make me feel better. He agreed if I held him and we went into the fuselage. He thought it was pretty cool and eventually wanted down to look around. We waited in line forever, but finally got to get up into the cockpit. Brady did pretty well.

We then set off to go watch the planes flying. First up was an F-15. It was really loud and Brady didn't like it at all. He was okay when it would come by for low speed passes, but the high speed passes he hated. He kept saying "I don't want him to come back!" We worked out a system though where I would tell him if he was coming in slow or fast. If slow, he'd lean forward and watch with interest. If fast, he'd just sit back in the stroller and try and prepare for the noise. He did pretty good. Alex...he wasn't bothered by their size, speed, or sound at all. Brady was a lot better with the Mig 17 demonstration...it's not nearly as loud. He liked all the WWII planes (Japanese Zeros and Kates, US P-40). His favorites were the Pitts biplanes. He liked their slow barrel rolls and when they'd criss-cross.

He wasn't a fan of the F/A-18C, which was one of my favorites (along with the F-15). I forgot how incredible it is to see a plane going streaking by without a sound only to be followed seconds later with the loud roar of the engines! The F/A-18 pilot was definitely into pleasing the crowd...he pushed some hard maneuvers and speeds. At one point, the announcer said he was planning for a very high speed pass with a roll...and he was coming in really low. But as he was coming in (maybe 1/4 mile away), I could swear I saw the "boom" of air starting to form as he approached supersonic. You can't pass over a crowd at supersonic, so he shut it down pretty darn fast and actually came through not that fast and without a roll. I think he got a little too excited to push close to mach 1 and eventually had to abort the maneuver as he slowed the plane down. He did some incredible tight turns at almost 9 G's and also demonstrated the great thrust:weight ratio by shooting straight up to >20,000 feet in a matter of seconds. It was very impressive.

We finished the day by watching the Air Force Thunderbirds in their F-16s. By this time, Brady was becoming accustomed to the loudness of the jets and wasn't as scared. It's amazing how crisp their maneuvers are compared to the "regular" pilots that flew the F-15 and F/A-18. You could draw a perfectly straight line through their rolls and knife-edge passes. After the Thunderbirds, we strolled around the tarmac looking at all the planes up close. Alex slept in the stroller while we still went around.

So 5-6 hours of being there, and skipping naps, the boys were both really good and I had one of the best times of my life. It was so cool to share that experience with my boys, since I remember what it was like loving airshows growing up. Luckily, we did a good job with the sunblock and neither of the boys got sunburned, although Melanie had one spot on her leg that got red and my arms and forehead got too much sun even though I had sunblock on. All in all, it was a very hot and tiring day, but absolutely great!

Four States Race Report

2008-05-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

A small group of Tri-OKCers went down to do the Regional Sprint Championship in Texarkana this weekend: Clint Honnoll, Bob and Jen Atkins, Travis Newton, and myself. Desiree Margagliano was the official for the race. To sum it up succinctly: I GOT SMOKED. The lack of training really came around to bite me...it really showed out there. To top it off, this was one of the fastest "front of the pack" races I've participated in. Just some ultra-fast guys at this one. Several guys ranked as SMW Elites didn't even crack the top 10, and a few pros were there.

The 650 yards swim was a clockwise triangle (my favorite layout). The chop wasn't too terribly bad, but the water certainly wasn't smooth. Distance seemed right on. We ended up going in 3 waves because of the # of participants, but even at that, I was jostled around more on this swim than I have at any of the other open water swim races I've done so far. Not enough to make me feel panicky, but more contact than I'd prefer. One great thing though is that I've been working on something to keep my core a little more rigid, and I've been swimming a lot straighter in the pool...now I don't even have to sight anymore in open water!! It was such a cool feeling. I just put my head down, and swam. For the first leg, I would glance up periodically just to make sure. But since I was dead-on with the buoy each time I just started trusting it. Not having to sight made the swim much more enjoyable. Swim time wasn't good, but I went pretty easy and was out of shape, so that was expected. Ranked 53 on the swim out of 153...not very good.

I wore my wetsuit since the water temp was 73, and I was worried about having a slow T1, but actually did pretty good: 15th out of 153. Out of T1 and onto the bike. Desiree and I drove the course on Sat. and found a broken beer bottle on the dam. We told the organizers about it and they cleaned it up. Unfortunately, by race time the next morning, there was another broken beer bottle at a different section of the dam. A final check and sweep through immediately before race time would have been nice. Both Travis and I went through it but came out lucky, but I heard through the grapevine that at least 2 guys flatted there. That sucks to have your regional championship ruined by something that could have been prevented. The bike course is about as flat as you can imagine, and a good section of it is on a lake dam. Wind was moderate, but nothing that we're not used to in Oklahoma. It was just a little stiffer wind than I would have liked. I was hoping to go in and drop a good bike split, pushing myself to the point of nearly blowing up, but I just couldn't seem to get it clicking on the day. My wattage output was pretty low...roughly the same as I put out for a 30 mile ride last week, but this was only 13 miles...still not sure what went wrong. Bike split was 15th out of 153 at 23.8 mph, which may sound good, but I have really high expectations on the bike this year. So I wasn't very thrilled with it. Had a good T2, 21st out of 153, then off to the run.

The run course was great. It's not flat, but there are no hills. It goes on a twisty-turny road through thick pine trees. It was mostly shaded, very scenic, and closed course so you could run tangents. My Polar HR monitor crapped out so I couldn't keep track of pace or split time, so just tried to keep up with some people. I saw my friend, Travis, with about 1.5 miles left. He was so far ahead of me that I lost a lot of motivation and pretty much put it on cruise control for the rest of the race. A pretty mediocre effort in my opinion, but my mind thought I could do one thing and my legs said another. Oh well. Ranked 46th out of 153, which is way lower than I normally am on the run.

Post race spread was incredible. All the pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, cookies, fruit, etc. you can imagine. Several kegs of beer (3 I think, which were all floating by the end), lots of Gatorade and water. And all the food was available to athletes and family/fans, which was very cool. There's also a really neat park for the kids to play on, so it would be a great race to bring the family. The announcer at the finish line was funny and entertaining. Many, many great things about this race. Ranks as one of the favorites I've done so far, just behind Rivercities.

My friend, and [used to be] close rival (he's now way faster than I), Travis, had a great race. He put together a phenomenal race despite the fact he had a swollen knee that had to have fluid drained off of it the week of the race. He couldn't even walk without limping, but despite not being 100%, he won the 30-34 AG and posted the 3rd fastest bike split OA. He added a very fast swim and a breakthrough run split to go along with that. He beat me by a good 4 minutes, whereas at March in Okarche he beat me by 4 seconds. He's getting a lot faster and I'm getting slower. I hope to catch back up to him later in the season as I start training again.

I ended up 29th out of 153 OA, and 4th out of 19 in AG with a time of 1:06:22. I wasn't thrilled with my splits or time, but I suppose it's all I could have done at my current fitness level, which has been sacrificed for the last month and a half due to career stuff. And I couldn't quite get my breathing under control for the race...I think it was the thicker air I wasn't used to. Despite my disappontment, I still had fun and overall was a great race.

Next up is Rt. 66 Sprint, which is the OK State Championship. I'm hoping to have a much better showing, but there isn't a whole lot you can improve with your fitness in just 2 weeks. I'll give it a good try, though.

The give and take of life

2008-05-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

This is something that every triathlete has to deal with. I'm usually pretty good about balancing life's needs, but I was just buried in April. As a result, I ended up sacrificing training for all of April and the first half of May in order to finish my Ph.D. and get out some manuscripts for peer-review. But what a great month it's been career-wise! I was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award for the Dept. of Zoology, Oklahoma State University. I successfully defended my dissertation and graduated at commencement on May 2nd. And the best of all: I had one of my dissertation chapters accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, or PNAS for short. This was a major accomplishment that I can't even describe how good it felt. Of course, I think I've just hit the pinnacle of my career already!

So some really great things and proud accomplishments over the month of April and May, but now the downside. I didn't swim once, I rode my bike only 4-5 times, and ran maybe a half dozen times. I'm very out of shape and am about 10-15 lbs over my optimal race weight. This is a bummer because I have a string of races coming up that I wanted to do well in: Four States Triathlon (Regional Championship), Route 66 Sprint Tri (Oklahoma State Championship), and the Route 66 International Distance Tri. Four States is this weekend, so it should be really ugly! But I'm going to have fun anyway and try and hit training real hard in June/July/August to get ready for the big races at the end of the year.

Great sponsorship opportunity

2008-03-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

In the ever-expensive sport of triathlon, it gets harder and harder to get the fun little goodies that help you get faster. With my big push this year to really have a good showing at the National Long Course Championships in Las Vegas in October, I started talking to businesses that have already helped me out through the years about some modest sponsorship opportunities. I'm excited to report that my local bike shop that I've used since starting multisport, Schlegel Bicycles, has agreed to support me in my efforts to improve my abilities this year. Steve, the owner of Schlegel Bicycles, is an avid (and skilled) cyclist who has really embraced triathlon here in Oklahoma City and is a big supporter of our local tri club, Tri-OKC. I've already received some really cool benefits from this relationship with his business, thanks to he and Ted...I'll be making a completely separate post on that eye-opening experience! My goal is to represent his store in a positive manner and hopefully increase his business through referrals; the growth of his tri-friendly store can only be a positive impact on the local tri and cycling communities.

Feel free to support his store by purchasing me a Cervelo P3C. :)

Schlegel Bicycles
900 N. Broadway
Oklahoma City, OK
405-232-4040

and

6066 S. Western Ave.
Oklahoma City, OK
405-634-8080

March in Okarche Duathlon race report

2008-03-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Well, first race of the multisport season, and a State Championship to boot. I wasn't too keen on having an important race as my first one of the year, but what can you do?

I was clearly rusty with even the basic stuff: preparation. I didn't get everything ready that I needed to on Sat., so I finished up the loose ends on Sunday morning. I normally like to get to the race about 1.5 hours before start; I showed up 25 minutes prior to start on this one. DOH! I barely had enough time to set up my transition area before they were kicking people out of transition. I thought surely I would forget something in such haste, but amazingly, I didn't. I went over to get my timing chip and they were already put away! DOH!...again. Desiree the race director saw I was panicking and offered her chip, so I got that set up. Then I had just enough time while everyone was on the start line to jog to the end of the block and back. Yep, a whopping 2-block warm-up! DOH!! Desiree found my chip and we quickly switched it out just before the gun went off. I really had given up hope for a decent race with all the fiascos thus far. But it was a beautiful day, great temperature, clear skies, and light wind...should make for a fast course.

Once the gun goes off, it's a great feeling. All sense of panic and worry dissipates and you just get into your groove and rhythm. I wore my Polar with a footpod pace sensor so I knew exactly how fast I should be running. It always amazes me how fast people start out. I was probably in about 50th to 60th place at the first mile. As everyone faded, I stayed constant and came in with a 19:44 5K split, which was good for me. It was about 30 seconds faster than I expected, so the course may have been about a tenth of a mile short. Was feeling pretty good on the run...stayed nice and easy the whole time and even chatted with Talbot Cox (a really fast 15 year old who has a lot of potential) for most of it. He knew I was gunning for my good friend, and big rival, Travis Newton. As we approached T1, he said go get him and we went our separate ways. I was in 29th place out of 121 coming into transition.

The start of the bike was where I could really tell I hadn't warmed up. I got settled in and ramped up to my target wattage pace and my legs were burning from no warm up. I eased off a tad until getting loose, then picked it back up. I was having a great bike split. My pace was right where it was supposed to be and I caught Travis before the bike turnaround, but then I started to get a really bad cramp in my right calf. Travis saw me at the turnaround and knew I was on him, so he dropped the hammer. I kept cramping and couldn't keep up with him, so he pulled back away. Then cramps started in my left calf too. I had to do a lot of coasting to stretch them out on the way back in, but they just kept getting worse. I turned in the 8th fastest bike split with an avg. speed of 22.3 mph. I think I was around 14th place at this point or so...not sure.

I dismounted my bike and then all hell broke loose. Both calves and both hamstrings started to cramp. I used my bike as a crutch to support my weight and came into transition. I took my sweet time in T2, debating whether or not to take my very first DNF. I didn't feel like continuing, but I decided to give it a go. With about a mile left, I saw Talbot going the other way; he saw Travis in front of me and said "there he is, go get him!" I sucked it up and made a huge push to close the gap. He seemed so close that I could have thrown a rock at him (maybe I should have), but I just couldn't close that last gap. The only good thing working for me was that I paced the 1st run and the bike so well, that even with cramps in my legs, I turned out a decent 2nd run: a 20:43, but that was only good enough for the 17th ranked 2nd run.

I ended up 13th overall (out of 121), 3rd in age group (out of 20), with a time of 1:31:48. Our age group was tight: Trey Cone won it and he passed Travis and I with about a quarter mile left (Trey's a superb runner). I closed the gap on Travis, but just couldn't make that last push. So Trey took first in AG (11th OA) and beat Travis by 8 seconds. Travis took 2nd AG (12th OA), and beat me by 4 seconds. Tight finish! It was fun!!!

All in all, I can't complain. The start was a fiasco, but I did what I could do with it. I haven't trained much this year, but still turned in a decent performance and didn't embarrass myself. This year's race was ultra-competitive...one of the best fields I've seen in a duathlon in a long time. I finished close to people that used to crush me, which was encouraging. Such a good outing on so little training makes me think that I may be able to surprise myself this season, and maybe even surprise a few other people along the way.

rTSS part 2

2008-02-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

My friend, Lee Robb (who tends to see things more clearly than I do at times), had the following comment regarding my unhappiness with running TSS in WKO+ (see previous blog post for my take on it):

"Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Daniels defines T-pace as a 50-60 minute effort, that which elicites a steady state of lactate accululation. 10k intervals for a 30' runner is a vo2max workout (I-pace), wherease 10k intervals for a 60' runner is a threshold workout (T-pace). Threshold pace for a 30' runner is closer to their 20k race pace. "

Initially, I was irritated...not because of what Lee said, but because immediately after reading it, I knew I was wrong in my "logic" somewhere. His point made sense, and worse yet, was right. So I re-evaluated my position and tried to figure out where I went wrong and why despite the above being true, I still didn't like how rTSS was calculated in WKO+.

Physiologically, I have no problem with the threshold pace being set as an hour. LT is usually defined as lactate accumulation over a period of about an hour, regardless of sport. Many swimmers judge their training paces based on their 3K swim time (about an hour), which sould be their approximate LT pace. Okay, so I'm at peace with the idea that WKO+ uses a 1-hour pace as threshold. But there is still something that doesn't sit right with me, and that's what I had to put a lot of thought into.

I finally figured it out. I don't like it from an aesthetic standpoint. I'm planning my season based around TSS for each sport, not time or distance (here). What I would like is to have TSS broadly comparable among the 3 sports so that a TSS of 80 on the bike feels like a run TSS of 80 feels like a swim TSS of 80. But with threshold run pace as a function of a 1-hour time, they aren't that comparable. In my opinion, WKO+ still underestimates the "true" TSS for running. For example, a TSS of 150 on the bike feels nothing like TSS of 150 on the run. The latter would have me taking several days rest, whereas the former would require 1 day rest max. So, I finally figured out why I don't like it...turns out I have to eat crow about it not accurately reflecting a good LT pace, but I still think I'm right on how it underestimates rTSS.

Planning a training season around TSS

2008-02-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

I know I just posted yesterday, but I've been kicking these ideas around for a few weeks and wanted to get them down while fresh in my mind. I'm completely revamping the way I train this year for two reasons: 1) out of necessity. I don't have as much time this year due to career stuff, so I have to find a way to get faster with less time. I ran across these articles (by Mark van Akkeren and the other by Terry Kerrigan and Phil Skiba). They really made me think about how to train to get faster. And 2) I think I can train more effectively on less time using a training plan based on TSS (see TrainingPeaks WKO+) rather than distance or time. Overall, the goal is to get faster without putting in 20 hr training weeks!

I've picked up some ideas on message boards and kicked around a few of my own on how to train most efficiently with the above two limitations. Here's what I've developed so far:

General progression

Workouts with TSS greater than CTL provide stress stimulus.
Workouts with TSS = CTL are maintenance.
Workouts with TSS less than CTL are recovery.
Increase CTL 5-7 points per week (bike), 3-5 points per week (run), and 3-5 points per week (swim)
Increase CTL using stress stimulus workouts until I reach a threshold CTL, at which time I'll incorporate more of the 2nd and 3rd types of workouts to avoid overtraining.

Bike workouts

If 3x per week: 1 at FTP, 1 with VO2max intervals, 1 in L2 (endurance; my long ride).
If 4x per week: the above, plus 1 FTP/tempo.
Replace intervals with maintenance/recovery if bordering on overtraining.

Run workouts

If 3x per week: 1 at threshold/10K pace, 1 speedwork (VO2max intervals at track), 1 in L2 (long, endurance run).
If 4x per week: the above, plus 1 threshold/tempo.
If 5-6x per week: the above plus recovery run(s).

Swim workouts...well, I haven't quite figured those out yet.

Really the goal of all the above workouts is to achieve the right stress to show consistent improvement without progressing too fast (injury) or too far (overtraining). I'll do that by continually monitoring CTL (fitness) and managing the amount of stress using TSS. After I start to get that figured out, then I'll next be figuring out how to maximize TSB (training stress balance) on race day!!

Running TSS

2008-02-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

For those of you who use TrainingPeaks WKO+ software, it's a great tool to analyze data and train efficiently (and if you don't use it, you should!). I'm not a long time user or fan of TSS (training stress scores), but have recently adopted using them after I got a power meter in November. I'm finding that for the bike, it has been quite useful and I'm growing in support of the idea. As I started to really embrace it for the bike, I found that I longingly wished for it on the swim and run. While I waited for the latest version of WKO+ to include a running TSS (rTSS), I made my own spreadsheet that calculated it in the interim. It worked well. But now, WKO+ does have rTSS (still no swim yet), which is supposed to make my life easier since I don't have to calculate it on my own, right? Well, I can't get over a hump that I see as a fundamental flaw in how it is currently designed to calculate in WKO+.

I don't really have any particular issues with the bike TSS. In short, it uses the quotient of your normalized power (NP) output from your functional threshold power (FTP) to calculate an intensity factor (IF), where IF = FTP/NP. FTP is defined around a 40K TT, so they use a general time of an hour. TSS is then calculated for each workout using the formula (workout duration * IF^2 * 100). The "100" standardizes the score to 1 hour. For the bike, I'm okay with this. Really fast guys may do a 40K TT in 55 min, and slower guys at 1:05, but that's still pretty close to an hour. Probably not enough to drastically change TSS one way or another, or worse yet, change training zones (based on FTP) to less efficient ones.

But I do have a problem with the run TSS. Instead of using FTP to calculate IF, it uses Normalized Graded Pace and Threshold Pace to calculate IF. I'm okay with this part...it's the same concept, just a different metric. But the formula is identical to the bike TSS from what I can tell: duration * IF^2 * 100. In my opinion, it shouldn't be standardized to an hour! Here's why: in the bike scenario, fast/slow people don't differ much from an hour for 40K TT. In a running scnerio, using a 10K as the surrogate for the 40K TT, there is a huge difference between fast/slow people, with faster runners being in the low 30-minute times and slower being near an hour. So if you are a faster runner and use your 10K time as Threshold Pace, the current formula of rTSS in WKO+ severely underestimates your stress for the workout. If you wanted to solve for this, all you have to do is change your Threshold Pace to be your 1-hr run pace. However, there are problems with that, too. Since running/riding near threshold is *supposed* in target LT the most, running at a slower pace for intervals doesn't seem to be as effective at improving LT than it would be to run near 10K pace for the intervals. Entering a Threshold Pace based on a 1-hour run completely changes the training zones to ineffective ranges. Entering your 10K pace underestimates your rTSS, inhibiting your potential to maximize training/racing.

It seems that rTSS is a good idea in principle, but it was designed by people that think like cyclists, not like a runner. In my opinion, the way to solve this is to change the "100" in the formula to calculate rTSS. Instead of a fixed 100 value (= 1 hour), it needs to adjust to a specific 10K time. This would be very easy to do. Just replace the "100" in the above formula for rTSS with "(60 / (threshold pace * 6.2)) * 100" if you use min./mile or "(60 / (threshold pace * 10)) * 100" if you use min./km. The resulting formula for min/mile would be "rTSS = duration * IF^2 * ((60 / (threshold pace * 6.2)) * 100)." Sure, I could do this in a spreadsheet and then override the existing values in WKO+, but then what's the point of having the software calculate rTSS in the first place?

What a busy 3+ weeks

2008-01-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I updated, so no better time than the present. What a whirlwind the last 3 weeks have been. A short summary: driving 1560 miles visiting family, driving 960 miles for meetings, and working endless hours trying to get work done. I'm beat.

Started off the weekend before Christmas. Drove to southern Missouri to visit family, then Kansas City, MO for more family, then northern Missouri for more family, then back to KC, then back home to Oklahoma. Rested for a few days, then down to Dallas to visit more family and wrap up our holiday season. I am amazed (and lucky!) at how well my 3 yr old and 7 month old travel. I probably wouldn't have survived if they weren't so good on trips. So, nearly 1600 miles and a week and a half later, I finally get back to my own bed. Only bad thing is that I have to get up early the next morning to head to San Antonio for some meetings (more driving!).

The meetings in San Antonio were great. They were for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. I gave a talk that went fairly well, and met some new, really great, fun people while I was there. As tired and stressed as I was, it was both very productive and very fun. After getting back, I had several manuscripts to put the finishing touches on (4 of them) and also send in an application package for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts. It's highly competitive, so I don't have my hopes up, but it certainly would be nice to get the postdoc and not have to worry about what my next job is going to be.

As for triathlon, well...haven't been able to train too much. Went on maybe 2 runs and 1 trainer ride. Because of that, and the fact that I'm just dead-tired, I've decided to cancel my race at the Frost Yer Fanny Duathlon in Austin, TX. It's only 5 days away and I'm out of shape, tired, and haven't been able to spend much time with my wife and kids. I'm not that bummed about it, other than the fact I was really looking forward to seeing my old "training partners", Chris and Justin Wolfe. I use that term in quotes because getting smoked by them on the bike all the time isn't exactly training with someone...it was more of we started our workouts together and I held on for as long as possible. From what I can tell, they are happy as can be in Austin and even faster than they already were. I'm hoping to get down there some time in spring to ride with them again.

This last Saturday was great. Brady (my 3 yr old for anyone who doesn't know me well) has been obsessed with triathlon for the last few months. I swear I don't force it on him! He watches Ironman races on the DVR constantly, as much as he watches movies and cartoons. His favorite is Kona. He keeps saying he wants to race in a triathlon. I have to admit, it certainly puts a smile on my face. So we decided to sign him up for swim lessons; something we've planned on doing for a while now. His first lesson was Sat. While he did that, I did water babies with Alex, who, even for a 7 month old, takes to water like a fish. I certainly hope they become faster swimmers than I am! They both did great and Melanie and I had a blast watching them. As soon as we got home, Brady begged and pleaded to go ride his bike. How funny is that? Just like Dad, he wants to go ride after his swim. Too cute.

Well, enough rambling. Still have a lot of work to do on my 4th (and last!) dissertation chapter and I need to start getting back into the swing of training. I've gained 17 lbs since I raced at Redman, so I need to get going again.

My frustration is coming to an end

2007-12-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

My favorite sport of the 3, by far, is running. For a lot of triathletes, this is their least favorite, but not for me. Swimming numerous, mindless, laps in the pool is my least favorite. I like cycling, but mostly in the summer. During this cold weather, when I'm forced to stay inside on the trainer, I often debate whether or not being poked by a sharp, red-hot poker would be worse than 1 hr on the trainer. Then I realize that the sharp poker doesn't make me faster, so I choose the trainer. And even during the summer, I often dread my 5-6 hour rides because they just get so old week in and week out. The one thing that keeps me motivated on the bike is that I know the more I ride, the faster I get.

But running! Ahhh, now that is different. I love running, and always have. To me, it's a time to relax (even when working hard) and collect my thoughts. I do some of my best thinking while running. When I'm stressed, with impending deadlines (which is always), I like to go on my run and put that stuff behind me for a little bit, think about what I need to do to stay organized, then when I'm done, I'm mentally refreshed to tackle my work head-on. And unlike the bike, I don't mind running in the cold. Running is important to me both mentally and physically.

So imagine my frustration when about 3 weeks ago, I started getting a nagging dull pain in one of the tarsal bones of my foot! At this early point in the season, the last thing I want is to be sidelined for several months with a stress fracture. I wasn't too worried though, because stress fractures typically occur on either the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th tarsal bones, and my pain was on my 5th tarsal. So it was possible it was developing into a stress fracture, but I thought it was unlikely to be one given its location. I kept an eye on it, continued light running, but it was getting worse. I decided to take some time off from running. This has been great for my biking abilities, as I've really hit the bike hard the last few weeks. Well, after taking 11 days off with no running, I decided that I would try it again yesterday because I no longer felt any pain in the bone when walking around the house. I was nervous and anxious to see how my foot responded, but I'm happy to report that it wasn't sore this morning. Phew! I have my running back!

For right now, I'm going to keep each run short (~3 miles) and only run 3x per week. If I go a week with no pain, I'll increase to 4x per week, then from there I'll start increasing mileage again, and get back to running 5-6x per week, until I'm back to 30-40 miles per week. I'm still not out of the woods yet, but I think it's going to be okay. As long as I feel good by early January, I should still be fine to race at Frost Yer Fanny in Austin, TX. If I start feeling bad again, I may have to cancel my race, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. Now the really frustrating part...I want to go run again today so badly, but I know I shouldn't. Oh well, I'm off to go get stuck by a red-hot poker...errrr...I mean, ride the trainer.

Well, now I've joined the masses...

2007-12-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

With the 80 billion blogs out there to choose from, why should I start one? Good question. But we'll get to that in a second.

First order of business was to come up with a title. To answer that, I asked myself why I was even doing this. In a nutshell, there are three things that make me about the happiest I could possibly imagine in life: my family, my career, and triathlon. Balancing those things is tough with a limited time budget. Most people may think, "well, I need to make some sacrifices somewhere in order to juggle all this." I don't like that idea. That's not in my nature. I'm a perfectionist, and I'm usually (and sometimes ignorantly) under the impression that if I really want it, I can somehow find a way to make it work. I want it all, and anything less that that isn't as fulfilling to me. In my opinion, I do a good job of juggling these things. I DO have it all. I love how my life has panned out so far, mostly because of those three central themes. So, in my opinion, I have it all. There's my title.

Now I have a title, but what content to include? It will basically be a mix of all three of the important things in my life. But information about my family and job will only appeal to a small number of people, namely my immediate family and my fellow science geeks. However, triathlon information will probably appeal to a lot of people interested, both newbies and veterans. Thus, the majority of content will likely be biased toward this latter aspect...triathlon. That's not indicitive of where it stands on my priority list, it just means that is what will likely have the most readers.

Now back to that original question: why should I start one? I hope to gain 3 things from this experience. First, it's a therapeutic exercise for me. I think collecting my thoughts, despite the insane and constant hectic hassles, will be mentally refreshing. It will also be nice to look back and see how I've changed over time, and hopefully, improve myself as an individual because of it. The second task I hope to accomplish is to have something that family and friends can check (if they want) to keep up on what's going on in my life. And the third thing is that I know tri-geeks tend to search online about training and racing information almost as much as they spend in the pool and on the road. So hopefully I can share some ideas I have regarding triathlon, and maybe gain insight from others to see where I can improve my training and racing.