I feel a tad bit ill....

Well Today I was supposed to go to the Waterbury Y and get my swim on, but a lovely developing sinus infection had me against the pillow. Tomorrow I might do a pre work run or lift, followed by either pool or bike time, then lots of research, like into the night research, I need to grab a couple of household manuals and piece together my outline and bibliography. Seriously the way this course is setting me up It's not going to be all that difficult to crank out this paper,granted her criteria might be a little stricter.

I had planned to do a mock Borat post, about what my observations are a month past New Zealand, I can only come up with 3

1. the Kiwis are a lot more laid back, than all of us Puritanical New Englanders.
2. If you're a vegan, you might want to vacation elsewhere, or at least look up the vegetarian restaurants because all the little cafes were filled with meat and dairy goods.
3. Litchfield, NZ pop. 1500 cows, 500 sheep, 250 people, 1 alpaca
Litchfield, CT, USA pop. 1500 cows, 500 sheep, 250 people and 1 alpaca in essence no change.
ok had to share that a month late but better late than never.

I sent Catherine an email stating : " I think you're kind of cool." I hope that didn't freak her out, and yes those were my exact words....hopefully "cool" down there means the same as it does up here and isn't slang for cold hard bitch, because she was really awesome... if alot of this doesn't make sense I blame it on the Robitussin, well I'm going to crash and continue to chill.

Chillin' like a villin'
R.D.

To go elite or to go age group, that is the question....

Well I was looking at the results from Last Year's Patriot Half I was an hour and 4 minutes off the overall winner's time. 35 min. of that gap was from the bike split the other 27 coming from the run, and 2 from the swim. Now upon analysis of my training and equipment one must remember, my longest ride pre-Patriot was 48 miles, my monthly long run was 12 miles, and I was swimming 3300yds. 4x a week. Also I did the swim in a $50 surfing wetsuit rode a 23lbs. Road Bike, and had to ...umm...ditch some clif bars and their wonderful overabundance of fiber.... on the run. Anyhoo...the cranium got to working ( on something over than Victorian England.) I train like a beast, I've got better gear, I've steered clear of clif bars for the last 3 months ( shot bloks are a different story, guys at Gu I'm telling you a semi-solid chewable would be great...call um Gu-bers....) Patriot offers an elite, open catagory, which unlike most races you do not need an elite licence to compete in. It qualifies these entrants for the cash prizes, which is a bonus, but the one draw back, if you race as an open competitor you cannot be eligible for prizes for the age group and your time only counts toward the overall. So in essence my poll for this week is do I take a shot at the Patriot Half in the Open Catagoryand potentially a pay day, to see where I rank with New England's elites, or do I continue my reign of terror in the 20-24 Age Group for a bike jersey, nice trophy, and beers from the guys at HEAT? Realistically I have nothing to lose, I'll be competing in my age group at the Griskus, RI 70.3, and the rest of my races. So do I take a gamble or keep the status quo?

Analyzing the data.....

Well this has 3 fold application at this point.

After talking with my professor, I decided to limit my topic to medicine in the house in Victorian England. ( ie what was Dr. Mom responsible for and when did you bring in the high priced quack also what did the Docs know that the women didn't..and vice versa. ) So I will be analyzing Victorian periodicals as well as Doctors manuals of the period to compare and contrast. Needless to say this make research less of a headache.



Part of me is begining to think Eagleman might have been a mistake, but its too late to backout now, I don't want to eat a $200 entry fee., so I will train as best I can and see what happens, I'm not counting on the sole Kona slot in my age group ( but hey miracles do happen.), but maybe I can steal a slot to Clearwater in November. When I signed up in August I forgot how difficult it is to train in April, the weather is bi-polar, my professors seem to think that we really like our old, dusty, outdated library, that and all the family money drama that disappears for a month when the income tax refund check comes in begins to resurface ( granted this year it shouldn't be as bad as in the past, my mom's got 4 deals on the table...low interest rates and low house prices are good for something: Buyers Market Baby!)...oh and I get a year older.....like I said April =lots of STRESS a few more grey hairs, and a birthday cake...well at least I get a cake:)

The last Analysis seems to disprove the theory that Triathlon was the sport of bored runners.
1 of the 7 people who voted on my poll stated that their best discipline was the run.
2 of the 7 myself being one of them, say they were transplated swimmers
2 more claimed the bike as their true love.
and 2 more claimed that they rocked all 3 sports with equally.

This week's poll :
I haven't thought of one. If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears.

The neurotic number cruncher.
R.D.

Kicking it Old School.

YesterdayI decided ( probably stupidly) to get in a nice little threshold workout. I dropped my sister off at the movies ten made my way to my Alma Mater, Holy Cross High School in Waterbury. Normally I do my track work in Wolcott, but decided to visit my old stomping grounds, I can say this I don't miss the hill down to the track. The memories of having to sprint up this 10 percent grade in the begining of summer start flooding back, the super studs racing ahead, and me hanging toward the back. I got down to the track and did an easy mile to warm up. The smell was the same burnt ground up tire smell I remembered, the lines were a little more weather worn and the surface was ground down a little more than it was when I last graced its surface almost 5 years ago. Some football player was doing laps, running a mile, walking a half as he conditioned himself for spring training as I made my way to the inside lane after I finished my warm up. The words of my track coach ringing in my head 4x 800m thresholds, use the first one as an easy one then descend the remaining 3 between 5-10 seconds. 60 seconds rest between each, feel like you could have pushed harder at the end of the workout , don't thrash yourself. 9 years ago as a feshman these words seemed like blasphemy by senior year I understood. This workout was a gas gauge, how fast was your "go to pace." A test to see what was possible, after more base, more hills, and a little speed. a test to see if your training plan was working or if you should go back to the drawing board. A test of lactate, before all the high tech toys of Garmins, HR monitors, powertaps, GPS Monkey Calibrated thingambobs, just you 400 meters of rubber and a stop watch, training as ,dare I say, it should be. I did my first 800 going noticeably slow. 4:10, took my minute walking around not to get stiff, cleared the stopwatch and off on to number 2. This is where it would get tricky, in high school I would suddenly blast off and try to catch the faster guys and blow up. Today there were not faster guys, just me and the clock. I took off on Number 2. I finished it in 3:58. 18 seconds, maybe I pushed a little too hard but set my goal for # 3 3:53 Took my minute then it was off again. I kicked it up just a little bit more on this one, running down some older guy who was doing his distance run on the vulcanized surface. 3:38...20 seconds. I took off the long sleeve for the next one, I need to fly, crack 3:30. My minute rest finished and off I went. I did the first lap fairly hard I didn't take a split I was just running by feel. I continued to push trying to pick up the pace on the second loop, building through the turn, cranking down the back strech, building through the final turn and sprinting down the home strech. 3:21. Not a bad one, I felt like I could do another but decided not to push it. I did an easy 800 and stretched before making my way back to the car. It was a good workout no frills, no fuss, the way I like it. Is this the best kind of thing to do to improve a half marathon split, not really , there weren't enough repeats, but a least I know my progress. Right now I know that I can easily sustain 7 min miles so hopefully I can break the 20min. barrier at the Griskus sprint, and maybe have a crack at the overall.

I plan on doing this workout, or some longer varation to track my progress throughout the course of the season. The days of just doing easy base rides and runs are over, I need to get my body to suffer, I need to get faster, I want to feel like I did in high school, tired and sore before the races began but knowing when the time came to race I could drop the hammer, my racing is starting to become more than just a weekend hobby, where I throw on my running shoes, crank out a 5k and then guzzle a little brew at the post race? Will I still keep it fun, yeah, if it's not fun why do it? That's why I sign up for most of my locals every year. The other part of me wants to know just how fast I can go.

Dreaming of the day he goes pro.
R.D.

7 miles to sanity.....

Well more of like 7.5-8 miles but irregardless. As hinted by my last few posts, I have lived to do 3 things, eat food in mass quantities, study and work, somewhere in there I managed to eek out some pool time. Today, I managed to accomplish a little, I got my paper topic formula thingy done, filed for financial aid, passed out for an hour because I have been running on little sleep. It was after my hour of nap time that I decided I needed to run damn it. Now normally, this would result in me throwing on long sleeves and shorts and going for a quick 4 miler then back to the grind, but I decided to commit academic blasphemy and devote an hour to getting back some clarity. 60 min. of not reading on how Victorian Men were bi-polar, Mr. Liston treated surgery like it was playtime with power tools, or what my hope learning credits were for 2007.

In essence 60 min to let my mind wander while I dodged traffic.

I threw on long pants and went on my 7.5 -8 mile loop of the Wolcott Rd. Side of Wolcott. Now for those unfamilar with this route, it begins flat with me running down the main road, then down some rink-a-dink side street, then past Scovil's damn then up Boundline road which is rolling. It starts out flat and ends with a Tour de France esque climb to the Center of town, then back on to some smaller rollers past the high school, a semi- flat to down hill back to Route 69 then back the way I came with some nice rollers before a slight false flat down hill to the homestead.

Now this has been the longest run I have done since a little race about a month ago, so when I started I was a little nerveous , but the thought of having to chain myself to the computer on a beautiful day , drove me forward, I wanted to enjoy an hour of decent weather. So I took off on my route, zoning into my usual wandering, ramblings and day dreams. One of them being the typical being the favorite in Hawaii and having a minute lead in the last 2 miles of the marathon with Macca, Cam Brown, and Craig Alexander all chasing me down, that is a fantasy that reocurrs often, maybe one day it will come to fruition. Anyhoo, after purging this daydream out of my system, my thoughts turned back to classwork, how would I formulize my paper, the fact if I had to read another article on amputation I might as well just send my 3 shillings to Dr. John T. Ripper 34 Miller's Court Whitechapel, London for my portable surgical kit, complete with Liston Knife, bone saw, and Opium. ( for those of you who don't get this joke, watch the movie From Hell, or think of some event in 1888 London and it will come to you.)Any way after I got my Kona fantasy and sick jokes of how I could have fun with Victorian Medicine, I just began to appreciate the sheer joy of being out an running again. My New Balance 720s were feeling negelcted just being used for daily walks or household errands, so getting back on the road was a welcome release. Also my knees weren't as tight as they were on my IM+14 day 4 miler, so the 7 miles actually felt good. I noticed the Robins coming back, nearly had a Pheasant give me a heart attack, and just relished the fact that it was 5:30PM and I was not racing the setting sun. I was also surprised that despite my hiatus I still had about the same speed and base strength. I managed to get the run in in a not too shabby 1:03 so it was right on par with my normal training run. So all in all it was a pretty good day.

So there it was in essence I got some of what I needed to done, and took some time to clear my burdened head, all in all I'm feeling decent, not as good as I did post Ironman, but better than I did Monday Afternoon.

Hopefully switching to the B train

R.D.

2 Days without exercise make Bob ....

FAT and LAZY!

yes that's right the unthinkable has happened I have spent the last two days with late nights on the web and in the library, and no yards in the pool or miles on the road. This weekend a book review will be taking up most of my time along with some BS questions for my 200 level Europe class. Today I file for Financial Aid so the Feds can continue to pay for my suffering/education/ hopefully earning that sheet of paper, that says I'm worth more than $15,000 a year. ( the degree is worth it.. has become my mantra, especially on those days where I want to toss my laptop out a window, curl into the fetal postion and cry because its all becoming too much. I have four professors trying to compete for my limited time and resources, I am only one man damn it!) as well as more research, some pool time may eek itself out somewhere, somehow.

Tomorrow, continues my quest for sources, that damned book review ( hint the author is not getting many props.) and (gasp) a run .....



What I have found out from my research so far....I'm glad I live in the 21st century, because the 19th century idea of surgery was just plain brutal. Seriously, our butchers today, are more sanitary than the doctors were then....even Lord Joseph Lister didn't wash his hands between operations until 1868, and Liston, one of surgery's pioneers actually held a knife between his teeth when he was sawing a femur during an amputation...it was no small shock that the patient died of gangrene. Seriously I'm not making this crap up, going for an operation in the 1800's was like entering the little shop of horrors....and recovery well, that let just say docs could've of had a profitable business betting on if you were going to make it.

ok random crap done. Since I was on the note of medical progress Please Donate to Claire's AIDS ride....

Ok post Done
R.D.

Help a sister help others.....

A few months ago Speed Racer helpped me out by putting up a link to My War on ALS fundraising page and I decided to return the favor.
Speed Racer is raising funds for the San Francisco AIDS foundation to partcipate in the 5 day LA to SanFrancisco AIDS ride. Now I know what everyones is saying, " Damn it Bob you're making me reach into my wallet again!" but seriously, unlike the War on ALS where I was already entered into the event and my fundraising just went to the cause, Speedy has to raise $2500 or she can't ride. So far she has raised over $1600 but still needs about $900 to be able to ride. I'm not asking that anyone go crazy and donate $1000 ( if you want to I'm sure she' d appreciate it) but if you could throw a buck or two her way it would help her ride also it would help buy life saving drugs for AIDS patients, as well as fund awareness and prevention programs.

The US drug companies manufacture several of the anti- retrovirals that help combat HIV/AIDS yet Pifzer isn't really putting these treatments in the bargin bin. For third World countries especially sub-sharan Africa this is a major hinderance to combating the pandemic. Despite demands from the WHO (World Health Organization) to make these drugs generically, The US government has decided protecting drug company patents and profits take priority ( I could get into a whole rant on this but won't.) In any case it is non-profit groups such as the San Francisco AIDS foundation that provide testing, care, information and advocacy for lower income AIDS patients. Every donation no matter how small helps.
To make a donation to Speedy's fundraising site click on the link I have posted at the top of the website or click here.